


Find Her in the Smoke

by trevelies



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Hurt!Hawke, Hurt/Comfort, Purple Hawke, Two-Handed Warrior Hawke, like low key torture I guess, maybe preslash Hawke/Fenris?, regular Hawke snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7064926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trevelies/pseuds/trevelies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite the crew's rising fame, Hawke and Co. have made their fair share of enemies. Hawke learns the hard way about what happens when you piss off the wrong people. She also learns that evil lairs are really just too cliche.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t that Hawke couldn’t roll with the punches.

Maker knew, she’d been cracked across the back of the head with more weapons, bottles, assorted branches, and that _one_ time she’d never admit—with a stuffed nug.

So she was used to it. Sneak attacks, ambushes, spiders falling from the ceiling when she’d _just_ wanted to check up on her embarrassingly accident-prone mine. Being alert was the main requirement of the job.

Children dropping from the sky and landing on top of her—that was decidedly _not_. 

* * *

She bit her tongue to hold in an uncharacteristic scream as a hand tangled in her hair, followed by an entire body’s worth of weight hitting her square in the back.

She, and the weight, hit the cobbled stones like a sack of potatoes. A single second to catch her breath, and she was on her feet, sucking air into her bruised lungs and reaching for her sword. There was a bit of blood collecting at the corner of her eye from where her forehead connected with the stone, but she had no problem locating her attacker.

A mass of rags quivered at her feet. She spent a solid ten seconds wondering if she had drunk more than she thought at the Hanged Man, but then the rag pile flipped itself over and a mangy-looking child was revealed.

His hand was clenched to his chest, and she wondered for a moment if he had broken it. His eyes met hers, choked with fear.

“Hey…” Hawke said uncertainly, hand hovering over her blade. She glanced over her shoulder to see if an attack was imminent, but seeing no one, she put her hands on her knees and squatted next to the child. “Next time you want a ride home, try a horse, kid.” She smiled, but was sure the blood dripping down the side of her face was anything but reassuring.

She didn’t try to stop him as he scrambled backwards on his feet and on one hand. He pressed himself against the alley wall, his hand still fisted against his chest.

Hawke sighed, but didn’t attempt to follow him. “Are you alright? I know a healer.”

Silence and wild, fearful eyes.

“Look, I—“ She began again, reaching into one of her pockets to find some kind of bandage or splint that Anders always harassed her into carrying. At the movement, the child clambered to his feet and took off down the alley.

Hawke rose slowly and watched him disappear around a corner. She considered chasing him down for a moment, but dismissed the thought almost immediately. Clearly, she was the last person that kid wanted to be around.

 

She pushed open the door to the Hanged Man, and moved around a large group leaving the establishment. One drunkenly grabbed at her shoulder for balance, but she shook him off, irritated at the amount of unauthorized touching that seemed to be going on that night.

Varric and the others were just where she left them. The tavern was strangely packed, considering how late it was, and none of her friends noticed her return until she was practically in her well-worn chair.

Varric glanced up, and an easy smile slid across his face. “Hawke! Daisy make it home okay? Damn, I knew she was _losing,_ but I didn’t think she’d—“ He cut off, squinting at her over the table. “Maker’s balls, Hawke, did you introduce your face to a wall, again?”

“What? Oh.” She reached up and rubbed at her forehead, feeling the blood already crusty and matted in her hair. She frowned distastefully. “I guess you could say that. Except it was the ground, and a child falling from a roof did all the introductions for us.”

Isabela pulled a rag from _Maker_ knows where, and helped her scrub at dried blood. “There are worse places to fall from.” She supplied brightly, “Back on _the-ship-that-will-not-be-talked-about,_ one of my crew took a swan dive off the bow after a particularly well-earned bottle of rum in a Wicked Grace round. Lucky for him, he could swim. Lucky for us, the bottle didn’t go over the side with him.”

Fenris dropped the cards he’d been thumbing, and knocked back the dregs of his tankard. “In Tevinter, I once saw a man trip backwards off a—“

Hawke interrupted, “Yes, well, it’s less a debate over who has the best story, and more about the fact that a kid decided jumping on my head was a healthy alternative to whatever it is kids are supposed to be doing. Pulled my hair, too.” She pouted, rubbing at her scalp.

Isabela pulled away, apparently satisfied with her clean-up, and was nose-deep in ale before Hawke could thank her.

Hawke signed, and ran a hand through her now-mussed hair. She glanced at Anders, who had fallen asleep with a quarter-full tankard perched precariously on his lap.

She caught Varric’s eye and nodded at the sleeping mage. “I’m surprised you even got him out of the clinic. Haven’t seen him in a few days.”

Varric chuckled. “You’ll find fingernail claw marks all through Dark Town, if you were inclined to look. Though I tend to look anywhere _but_ the ground when we make our dutiful appearances in that particular slice of paradise.”

As if sensing that he’d become the topic of discussion, Anders woke with a start. The ale on his lap nearly sloshed all across his robes, but Fenris’ gauntleted hand snatched it from mid-air before it could spill a single drop.

Anders glanced darkly at the elf, but nodded his thanks gruffly.

“Hawke! You’re back. Your resident blood mage safe and sound?” He said, straightening in his chair at the end of the table and smoothing his rumbled robe.

Hawke frowned. “ _Merrill_ is fine, thanks. I hate when she tries to walk back to the alienage at night. You, on the other hand, I’m less inclined to walk home. I’ve had my fair share of people dropping on the sky for a free lift home.”

Isabela lifted her now-empty tankard in a mock salute, “Cheers to that! Get drunk like the rest of us, and get Anders to carry you!”

Anders shook his head, and muttered under his breath, but no one missed the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile.

Hawke gave up the doomed attempt to smooth out her hair, and settled back into the chair.  She thumbed the pommel of her sword for a moment, thinking about the child, and trying to figure out why this was so hard to let go.

She sighed and shook her head. She half hoped the kid would show up in Ander’s clinic to get his wrist looked at, if only so she knew he was okay. Children wandering around at this time of night, falling from buildings, dressed in rags…

“Whatcha thinking about, Hawke?” Varric queried quietly under his breath, low enough so the others didn’t hear over their resumed bickering.

Hawke shrugged and waved Norah over to refresh her mug. “I’m just thinking how everything should be getting better, Ric. And it never seems to.”

“Mm.” He hummed thoughtfully. Then, “Hawke?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call me Ric.”

She grinned for the first time since she dropped Merrill off at the alienage. “Worth a shot.”

* * *

 

_What’s the opposite of claustrophobia?_

Hawke stared up at the sharp red ceiling of her four-poster bed, and felt a strange wave of nostalgia for when her and her sister and mother were crammed into Gamlen’s shit-hole of a house.

 “This is no place for three women to live.” She remembered her mother complaining to Gamlen when they first piled in to his home in Low Town.

“Does your eldest even qualify as a woman anymore?” He shot back defensively, shooting a dark glare over Leandra’s shoulder, which she returned with a wide grin and a rude gesture.

She sat up in bed, and worked her feet out from under the breathing mass of Ferelden fur. Shrugging a robe on, she walked purposely _past_ the mirror _without_ glancing at her hair.

She swung the door open, nearly colliding with the blonde-haired mage poised to knock. She stared at Anders for a few seconds before yawning atrociously in his face.

“Hey. Food?” She swung an arm over his shoulder and half dragged him towards the stairs and hopefully—to a kitchen with breakfast awaiting.

“Hawke, I’ve got to talk to you.” Anders said, with a frantic edge that certainly should _not_ be the first thing she hears in the morning. Especially not when nursing a tiny hangover.

She bit back a groan, and let go of him. She leaned back against the balcony and nodded for him to go ahead.

Anders tapped his fingers against the side of his leg, a habit that was equal parts irritation and worry.

“Anders, you’re scaring me. Spit it out already. I’m hungry.”

Without preamble, her friend launched—loudly—into the reason he trudged up to High Town to see her, “Last night my clinic was broken into. At least, I think it was.” He frowned, “No, it definitely was.”

Hawke pushed off from the balcony, concern overpowering hunger immediately. “Are you alright? Were you hurt? Do you know what they looked like? I’ll run and grab Fenris, he and I can—“

“No, no.” Anders waved her off, “No, it happened last night, I think, after Varric dragged me off to the Hanged Man.” The mage also looked tired, she thought. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to force him to go drinking with them last night. “I came back, and went straight to bed, _drunk,_ I might add, thanks _so_ much. I was so hungover this morning that I didn’t realize the pounding in my head was actually someone pounding on my door.”

“Were they the—“

“What? No, it was a friend of Tomwise, who came round to pick up a poultice I made for Tomwise’s infected cut. But it was when I was grabbing it that I realized I was out Embrium, and I knew for sure that I had _just_ stocked up.”

Hawke relaxed, stifling another yawn, and considered her friend. “Anders, it sounds like you just ran out of Embrium. We’ll grab you some more next time we’re out.”

“No, it wasn’t just the Embrium. That was just what tipped me off. I went through all of the herbs, and there were very specific measurements taken from a few of them. Someone broke in to my clinic to get a very specific amount to do a very specific thing.”

Hawke considered this, and bit her cheek in thought. “Why wouldn’t they just take the jars they needed? Why waste time carefully measuring everything out?”

Anders shrugged, “Either they knew I was going to be gone for a while, and knew they had the time, or—“

“Or they didn’t want you to notice they’d broken in. Hmm. What can they do with what they took?”

Anders shook his head, “I don’t know. Yet. But whatever it is, it’s worth looking into. They took a large quantity of Hartbane, and that stuff is only used for the really tricky summoning spells. I’ll need to spend a little more time to figure out the specifics, but you know I wouldn’t bother you with this unless it was bad news, Hawke.”

Hawke’s stomach rumbled, but she hardly noticed. “Who knows about this so far?”

“So far, just you.”

“Right. Okay, head over to the barracks, and let Aveline know. Also, check with her and see if there’s been any other thefts in Dark Town, or of those specific herbs. We got that job with Solivitus today, so we’re headed out of the city, but I’ll check with him and see if he’s heard anything.” She paused, and straightened the sleeve of her robe. “I don’t think we’ve much to worry about here, Anders. We’ll replace your stock.”

Anders frowned. “I’m more worried about what they wanted with the herbs in the first place, Hawke. They went for the not-so-good kind of herbs.” But he said his goodbyes, and left to speak with Aveline.

 

 

“I passed Blondie on the way here.” Varric commented. Mal had already finished licking every inch of the dwarf he could get to, which—considering the dog’s considerable (and the dwarf’s not-so-considerable) height—was just about every inch.

Hawke finished cinching on the last piece of armor, and reached for the sword balanced against the wall. “He had a break-in last night and some of his stock got grabbed. He’s pretty concerned about it. Guess some of the particularly nasty herbs went missing.”

Varric frowned, and scratched Mal’s head thoughtfully. “I thought Blondie’s clinic was off-limits. In fact, I’m sure I pay enough out of pocket to make _sure_ of it.” He looped his thumbs into the sash at his waist. “Hmph.” He grunted, clearly irritated.

Hawke flashed him a grin, “For someone who claims to have all of Kirkwall in their pocket…”

Varric rolled his eyes. In the distance, Hawke could hear Bodhan letting in the stragglers of their Sundermount trip. “All I’m saying is, it shouldn’t have happened. It’s not a usual Dark Town gang. I’ll poke around. You’d be surprised what my nimble fingers can uncover.”

Fenris, catching the last bit of the conversation, snorted as he entered the room, Merrill at his heels. “I don’t think anyone would accuse you of being _nimble_ , dwarf.”

“Oh, Hawke, you invited Broody. This’ll be a fun trip.” Varric complained loudly, without heat.

“What are we uncovering?” Merrill asked brightly. She was her usual chipper self, none worse for wear after a night’s drinking that the rest of them seemed more sluggish than usual to recover from.

“Nothing, Merrill. I’ve probably put more thought into this than I needed to.” Hawke said, waving her off. “We all set? Fenris? Good. Let’s head out.”

* * *

 

Master Ilen shut them down almost immediately.

“Fantastic.” Hawke muttered under her breath, as she and her companions trudged a few feet away from the angry shopkeeper. “Merrill, I thought bringing you here would make this easier. Where else are we going to get tattoo ink?”

Merrill whispered back, “You thought bringing back a disgraced clan member would convince Ilen to sell you vallaslin ink?”

“Better you than Fenris!”

Fenris sighed, but wisely didn’t enter their bickering. Hawke groaned. “Guess we can give the alienage another try. Maybe the Black Emporium.”

Merrill shuddered. “I hate going there. It’s cold and that man always yells at me for talking to the child.”

Hawke’s lip curved in a smile. “‘Don’t manhandle the urchin!’”

Merrill laughed, and then looked around. “Where’s Varric?”

“Right behind you, Daisy. Let’s kick rocks and get out of here.” Varric appeared from behind Hawke, emerging from between two aravels. Hawke’s eyes zeroed instantly to something palmed in her friend’s hand.

“But—“ Merrill began, but Hawke already wove her arms through her elven friends’ and began pulling them away.

“We bring you two to look cute,” she informed them, “but—“

Varric cheerfully finished for her, “but we bring me to get shit done. Also, to be the charmer in our rag-tag group of friends. Guess who’s nimble _now_ , Broody?” He triumphantly displayed the vial of tattoo ink, carefully out of sight of the Dalish.

Fenris rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be dragged from the scene. Once they had passed the two Dalish guards at the edge of the camp, Varric flipped the vial towards Hawke, who caught it one-handed and tucked it safely in her pocket. “You know I love you, Varric.”

The dwarf popped the joints in his neck and grinned sideways at her, “I’ll be sure to write home to mother.”

Hawke laughed. It was nice to be away from Kirkwall for a few hours. It was nice to do something like fetching a vial of ink. Simple. It seemed like every job they worked, and favor they were asked for, was increasingly political and treacherous. Just a few weeks ago, the bleeding _Arishok_ was sending them off like dutiful pets to chase down some Qunari poison that had fallen into the wrong hands. Things were only getting worse in Kirkwall, no matter where she looked. Templars and mages, Qunari, the cartel, not to mention the countless gangs that took to the streets when the lights went out.

Well, they kept busy, to say the least.

Fenris bumped her arm with his, and quirked an eyebrow.

Her expression didn’t change for a moment, but then relaxed into a small smile.

At least she had the best damn group of companions Kirkwall—even Thedas, it seemed—had to offer.

“That sword…” She began, and Fenris glanced over his shoulder before back at her. He reached back and pulled it from where it rested between his shoulders.

“The one we got from the Arishok’s mission? The manic woman’s sword, if I recall. Are you saying you want it back?”

“No! No, don’t worry, I’m not stealing your sword, Fenris. It gave me the creeps when we looted it from her corpse. I couldn’t figure out why.” She studied the sword for a moment. “But I think I remember now. It looks like those old Darkspawn swords from the Blight. I’ve seen a few visiting Fereldens carrying them around the city.”

Fenris chuckled his gravely laugh. “Fereldens are nothing if not practical, I suppose.”

She shuddered, “Still. Creepy.” She looked back at Fenris and caught him staring thoughtfully at her, “I’m sorry—did I turn you off the sword? I didn’t mean to insult it.”

He looked startled. “What? No, of course… of course not. But I will use my previous sword, if it makes you more comfortable.” He returned the sword to its resting place.

Hawke looked after it for a few more seconds. “No, it’s fine, Fenris. It’s just an odd feeling from an odd sword.”

* * *

 

“I don’t know how you do it, Hawke.” Solivitus said, holding the viscous material up to the light. “Do you know how long I searched for one of these? I almost got mugged when I attempted to look in Dark Town.”

“Well, it’s all about who you know.” Hawke supplied vaguely. She and Fenris had traveled straight to the Gallows once they arrived in town, eager to give Solivitus his ink. Hawke tried not to take her mage friends into the Gallows if she could help it, and had asked Varric to walk Merrill home.

“I suppose it’s good that I know you, then, Hawke.” Solivitus replied amiably. He pulled a strip of leather from one of his voluminous pockets and slid the freshly-acquired vial into one of its folds.

Now was as good a time as any. “You had any trouble around here recently?” Hawke queried. She hid a smile as Fenris tensed, always alert when trouble was mentioned.

The shopkeeper studied her for a moment, before shaking his head. “Business hasn’t been exactly booming, but I get the impression that’s not what you mean. Care to elaborate?”

Hawke shrugged. “Not particularly. No thefts? Missing herbs? Anything to do with a—“

“Summoning spell?” He finished, crossing his arms.

“That’s the one.” _This can’t be good,_ she thought.

“Had a kid here the other day. Asking after some herbs. Dirty little thing. He rattled off some of the usual herbs, but there was a strange request that stuck out.”

“Let me guess. Hartbane.”

“That’s the one.” He replied, parroting her earlier remark. “Couldn’t help him, of course. Hartbane—that stuff is rare, and dangerous. You need someone extremely experienced to handle it.”

Hawke was silent for a moment. “A kid, huh? Remember what he looked like?”

“Street rat. Definitely hired by someone else. I see it more than you think—sometimes people want to buy some of the unhealthy stock, but don’t want a trail leading back. Whoever is looking for Hartbane—they don’t want people to _know_ they’re looking.”

“Thanks, Solivitus. You’ll let me know if you hear anything else?”

The man smiled, “You keep supplying me with the hard-to-find ones, I’ll even tell you what I ate for breakfast.”

Hawke and Fenris departed the Gallows in silence. Fenris wasn’t one for unnecessary talk, but recently, especially when it was just the two of them, she’d found that he actually had a lot to say. She never found his silence uncomfortable. Especially when one was around Varric and Merrill and Isabela on a daily basis—sometimes it was nice to just walk in silence.

Hawke cursed after she stepped in a pile of… something, when they’d reached the docks. She’d been debating whether or not to tell Anders what she’d learned from Solivitus straight away, or if it could wait until morning, when she’d strayed into the smelly mess.

“Funny.” She snapped at Fenris, after a gravely chuckle escaped.

“Apologies, Hawke.” He said, unconvincingly. His smirk didn’t disappear as she scraped her boot against the cobbled stones.

“I have the worst luck these last few days.” She complained. She gave up with the clean-up and rubbed between her eyes. “And I think I’m still hung-over.”

They resumed their walk back to High Town, with Hawke extra alert for more piles of filth. Her mood darkened with every step, and the headache between her eyes grew worse.

Fenris studied her darkening mood passively for most of the walk. “Sometimes the best cure for too much drink is more drink.” He said thoughtfully. They’d just entered Hawke’s manor’s courtyard. “I still have a few bottles of Danarius’ finest, if you were inclined to join me.”

Hawke was more touched at the offer than she would have thought, but she shook her head sadly. “Thanks, but no thanks. I think I’m just going to call it a night. We all could use a bit of recuperation after a night on Varric’s tab.”

Fenris nodded, and if he was disappointed with her answer, she couldn’t tell.

“I’ll see you around, Fenris.” She said, raising an arm to squeeze his armored shoulder in a moment of awkward camaraderie that she regretted instantly. He smiled at her, though, and after their good-byes, headed off to his mansion that reeked of corpse and dust.

Hawke butted the front door open with her shoulder, already unclasping bits of her heavy armor. It’d seen better days. Maybe it was time to see if Aveline could bang out some of the bigger dents again. Maker, could that woman swing a hammer.

“Bodhan?” She called, “Can you grab me some kind of rag? I don’t want to drag Maker-knows-what through the—“

“Hawke?”

She wasn’t exactly startled, but she was tired enough that she dropped the gauntlet she’d just removed. She scooped it up and began removing the second one as a white-armored figure appeared in the door way of the mansion’s main room.

“Sebastian. Haven’t seen you around here in a while. Elthina keeping you busy?”

Her friend shrugged. “Can’t complain. A life in the Chantry is always busy.”

Hawke laughed, as she finished pulling off her boots. “Yet you seem to have time to come rough house with us heathens from time to time.”

Sebastian smiled from where he leaned against the wall near the entryway. His bright blue eyes were almost black in the dim lighting, but his armor still reflected some of the light from the fire place behind him. She heard Mal growl distantly in his sleep once, before lapsing back into his quiet slumber.

Forgoing the removal of the rest of her armor, Hawke padded across the cold floor barefooted. “Seriously, Seb. We’ve missed having you around. At least come to the Hanged Man with us one of these nights. Just not tonight. Tonight, I have a tub of hot water, and a soft bed with minimal Mabari fur calling my name.”

Sebastian’s expression didn’t change, but she saw the tightness around his eyes as she approached. She frowned at his silence. “I’m beginning to guess you didn’t come here to lecture me on Andraste or learning to chew with my mouth closed.”

This time she earned a small laugh from him. “No, I didn’t come for any of that. This time.” He unclasped one of the leather pouches at his hip and pulled out a few folded pieces of paper.

Hawke thought it might be some sort of letter from the Grand Cleric, until she could begin to make out crude drawings as Sebastian began unfolding the scraps. Still confused, she took the papers when he offered them.

“What exactly am I looking at?” She looked uncomprehending at the paper.

It was a poster of some sort. It was a caricature of something half-woman, half beast. Twisted horns stabbed their way through harshly-drawn black hair; red eyes peered out from a bloodied face. Sharp-looking fingers curved around the hilt of a common two-handed sword dripping with blood, and corpses of humans and elves littered the ground beneath the figure’s feet. Her eyes were drawn upward to the face again, and found themselves stuck on the grotesque-looking mouth. Sharp, yellowed teeth bared in a wicked, inhuman grin. She cast a cursory glance at the hair and sword again when realization hit. “Is that supposed to be _me_?” She gasped, tearing her eyes up to Sebastian’s worried gaze for only a moment before resuming her fruitless search of the picture for her own features. It didn’t look like her, but there was no mistaking who its intended portrayal was.

“QUNARI BITCH” was written across the top with angry red letters, and what looked like the number three was etched into the paper next to her disturbing figure. She crumbled the paper in her fist, ignoring the fact that Sebastian had at least another three or four of the posters in his hand.

“Where did you find these?” Hawke asked, her voice flat and hard.

Sebastian sighed, and tucked the rest of the offending papers into his pouch again. “I didn’t find them, exactly. They were scattered across the Chantry courtyard earlier this morning. We gathered what we could, and burned all but these. I spent the day asking around, but it doesn’t seem like they turned up anywhere else—that I know of.”

Hawke paused, touched that Sebastian had spent his entire day tracking down the posters, while she had remained blissfully ignorant about them.

“Okay,” she started, carefully unfolding the poster she’d crushed in anger, “so I guess I _understand_ why someone would do this. Whether we meant to or not, we have been pretty pro-Arishok recently. And don’t even get me started with that Sister Patrice fiasco. But Andraste’s _tits_ , Sebastian, how the hell did it get to… to _this_?”

“It might have been just a bit of foolery, Hawke,” he offered, ignoring her customary blasphemy, “we don’t know that it’s anything serious.”

Hawke sighed and rubbed at her forehead, the ache worse than ever. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” She glanced at the disturbing image of herself again, this time, staring critically at the scribble resembling a three on the side. “Does this look like a three to you?” She asked, raising the now-wrinkled paper to her friends’ eyes.

Sebastian took the paper from her fingers and squinted at the mark. “To be quite honest, I didn’t think much of the artist’s particular choice of subject to look closely at his handiwork. I suppose it does, but it could also be an errant mark from the brush.” His blue eyes rose back to hers, “I don’t see the significance of a three.”

Hawke didn’t reply, but held a hand out for the poster. Without giving it another glance, she shoved the paper away into one of the folds in her armor. Sebastian was right. The intent was clear. A number didn’t fit into the otherwise straight-forward message. Someone was noticing some connection between her and the distrusted Qunari refugees of Kirkwall. And that someone wasn’t happy about it.

“Sebastian, I appreciate you coming to me with this. And I especially appreciate you running all over Kirkwall to save my oh-so-good name from slander. But if you don’t mind, tonight I’m going to put this out of my mind. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She sounded more convincing than she felt though, and her fingers on her right hand twitched senselessly against her armored leg.

“Of course, Hawke. It’s nothing but idle foolishness. I just wanted you to find out from someone you knew, and preferably not from their postings on the Chantry Board.” He smiled though, and Hawke relaxed a little. She groaned half-heartedly.

“Of course it was on the Chantry Board. My bad luck just gets better and better”

 

Varric was on her doorstep with ten more posters the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fic so please forgive any formatting issues. (Also ha HA I tricked you and didn't mention it was my first fic til the end author notes.)  
> So this fic is actually finished at a crisp 30K words--I just haven't officially decided how many chapters it's going to be. Probably about 6.  
> Obvi you guys all know the drill--please leave comments and all that fun stuff. My ego is already roughly the size of a skyscraper, so what can it hurt?
> 
> <3


	2. Chapter 2

She’d been in a good mood when she’d woken up that morning, feeling more refreshed and rested than she had in weeks. She’d been in a good mood when Bodhan had found her heading to the kitchen and told her Serah Tethras was here to see her. She’d been in a good mood heading to the main room to see her best friend in and hoped he’d brought her those scones Norah’d been known to make him from time to time.

She’d been in a good mood, as she hadn’t given falling children, Darkspawn swords, stolen herbs, shit on her boots, or disturbingly monstrous pictures of herself a thought all morning.

Varric holding a sheaf of those same posters ruined her good mood.

“Of for the love of— _where_ are you people _finding_ these?” She cried, exasperated.

Varric looked mildly surprised as he handed over the papers for her to glower over. “And here I was priding myself at being awake before the Hanged Man started serving their midday special. Who else has been by?”

“Sebastian came by last night. He’d found a handful of these around the Chantry courtyard. Where did you say you found these?”

“Didn’t say. Found them tacked outside the Hanged Man this morning. Actually, Isabella found them. Don’t ask me what she was doing out so early…” he grinned conspiratorially, “or late, as it were.”

“Well,” she sighed, leafing through the posters, “I better treat you to some breakfast.”

Varric grinned, and patted his stomach absentmindedly. “You cooking for little old me, Hawke?”

Hawke smirked back, forgetting the posters for a moment. “Sandal, actually. He’s getting better.”

Varric’s smirk faded fast. “I’m pretty sure last time I saw Sandal in the kitchen, he blew up half of it with one of his ‘enchantment quiches’.”

Hawke shrugged, “Mal seemed to like it. What was left.”

Varric mock-shuddered, but followed Hawke into the manor’s kitchen. “That mutt eats anything, Hawke. I’m pretty sure he’ll soon acquire a taste for dwarf.”

Sandal was nowhere to be seen, and self-pity began to settle in over her making her own breakfast. “Maybe we can sic him on your brother. Everyone wins.” She winced immediately, as she settled against the edge of the table. “Ouch. Sorry, I know it’s still a sore subject.”

Varric scratched at the back of his neck, but luckily, didn’t seem offended. “Sore subject for all of us, I suppose. But we’re not talking about my family problems. At least not this particular morning. What’s with the two?”

“’scuse me?” Hawke asked absentmindedly, discovering a freshly-bought loaf of bread from the market on the counter. She tore off a hunk, and was about to rummage through the cabinets for some probably-moldy (she couldn’t be bothered to shop, and Bodhan was busy enough) cheese, when she saw Varric was holding up a poster in lieu of answering.

Seeing her confusion, her friend tapped his index finger on the squiggle to the side of her portrait, and the etching that had previously been a nonsensical scribble formed into a two. She forgot the bread along with her hunger, and turned her back on Varric, spreading the rest of the posters out on the table. “Maker’s shaved _balls_.” She cursed, sparing half a moment to be thankful that Sebastian wasn’t the one delivering this batch of posters.

“I’m missing something.” Varric said seriously, coming up behind her.

“Not sure yet.” She replied, checking each of the posters on the table, and finding the same scribbled number on each of them. “Hmm.” She hummed, mystified. “Wait a moment.”

She left her friend to puzzle over the posters, as she hurried back up the stairs to the main bedroom. Her armor was where she had dumped it on the floor the previously night (Aveline would have a fit) and she picked through it until she found the paper she had crammed in it the previous night.

Mal, who had been sleeping on the bed and looking disgustingly pleased about it, awakened to the sound of her cursing and cocked his head thoughtfully in her direction. As Hawke headed out of the room, paper clenched in her hand, he padded happily after her.

“Oh, you brought a friend.” Varric commented dryly, keeping a wary eye on the Mabari as Hawke handed him the paper Sebastian had brought over the previous night.

Varric eyed the dog for another moment, before turning to the new piece of evidence.

“It looks like a three, right?” Hawke said fervently, when Varric didn’t say anything for a long while. He glanced back and forth at the different posters. “So what do you think it means?”

Varric looked up at her, and his expression was troubled. “How close did you look at the batch I brought in, Hawke?”

“What do you mean?”

“The number isn’t the only difference.” He held up Sebastian’s poster with one of the new ones. “Look.”

Hawke frowned and studied the papers anew. Seeing the papers side by side, the difference was clear. The new posters were even more disturbing, if possible. The teeth more grotesque, the blood more prominent. Thinking they had been identical, Hawke hadn’t noticed the small differences. The grin that graced the face of the original poster was replaced with a mouth tight with pain, and the painted blood had disappeared from her sword, and instead dripped from wound in the figure’s stomach, where a knife was planted. Hawke brought the picture closer to her face. The knife was difficult to see at first glance, as it was colored in the same color as the rest of her body, but up-close, it was unmistakable. If the original picture depicted her killing, this was a picture of her dying.

She held in a shudder at the picture, maintaining a calm face with her friend in the room. “Doesn’t explain the numbers.”

“I think it’s a countdown.”

Hawke turned to look at her friend. She hadn’t seen the dwarf look this disturbed since his brother had locked them in the thaig. “A countdown to what?”

“Seems pretty obvious to me, Hawke.”

* * *

 

Of course Varric insisted on gathering everyone.

Hawke was embarrassed, and felt oddly naked in her manor clothing when all her friends were in their regular armor and battle attire. Aveline looked especially menacing in her immaculate and gleaming guard armor, Wesley’s shield hung imposingly on her back.

“Hawke, if people have been making threats against your life, I’m the first that should have been told.” She scolded. They were gathered in Hawke’s library, away from the inquisitive ears of Bodhan, who seemed very curious as to why half of Kirkwall was piling into Hawke’s manor.

Hawke held in a groan, not ready for a smack from her oldest friend, but couldn’t refrain from whining, “But there _hasn’t_ been a threat on my life!” They’d been at this for at least half an hour. Everyone had insisted on inspecting the crude drawings, much to her chagrin.

Fenris, the one person she’d thought would back her on this, seemed to be the most upset. “You should have come to us immediately, Hawke.” He chastised angrily.

Before Hawke could snap, Sebastian saved her, “I only found these yesterday, Fenris. And even I assured her that they weren’t a big deal. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s—“

“— _certainly_ not yours, Seb.” Hawke interrupted quickly, seeing Fenris’ sharp green eyes snap to Sebastian.

“These pictures are creepy.” Merrill commented from her perch on Hawke’s desk. She was the last to inspect the pictures, and dropped them onto the desk after one last shivery glance.

Hawke sighed. “There is absolutely no reason we need to get all… _excited_ about this. I don’t care how many pictures are left around. I’ll take a thousand terrible pictures over a Hurlock archer or a poisonous spider eight days out of seven.”

“Normally, I’d be inclined to agree with you, Hawke.” Anders retorted from where he leaned against her fireplace. Varric had sent a runner to collect him from his clinic in Low Town. He must have been working; Hawke could smell elfroot poultices and sad stories from across the room “But it’s the countdown that worries me. Seems… ominous.”

“ _Everything_ we do is ominous! Last week, we fought Darkspawn when we were looking for a damn tree!” Hawke shot back. Mal whined at her feet, and she reached out a distracted hand to calm him. He hadn’t liked that fight any more than she had.

“I’m with Hawke on this one, kids.” Isabela supplied, not noticing or not caring about Aveline’s groan from the corner of the room. “What? If you’d had as many posters of _you_ as _I’ve_ had strewn about town, you’d be just as unimpressed. I mean, they’re not exactly good pictures, either. Though I’ve actually had some decent ones that I’ve seen hung up around—“

“We’ve all seen your collection, Rivaini.” Varric cut across. “And as impressive as it is startlingly… _revealing_ , I think we should focus on the actual threat here.”

“What threat?” Hawke demanded again, emphatically throwing her hands in the air. “Do you forget what I do for a living? What we _all_ do for a living? Aveline has had actual, physically signed and mailed death threats sent to the barracks. Varric gets threatening letters almost daily from Orzammar. We only _met_ Sebastian because there were blasted _mercenaries_ running all over Kirkwall looking for him!” She realized she was yelling, and fell silent for a moment. When none of her friends replied, she finished by saying shortly, “All I’m saying is, it’s part of the job, and there is absolutely no reason to get everyone involved in this.” She directed that last part to Varric, who didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed, the ass.

They argued for another quarter of an hour. Hawke refused to have a guard detail posted outside her door, and Aveline refused to leave Hawke without any sort of back up. Then Hawke refused to be cooped up in her house for the next two days, while Aveline refused to let Hawke “trollop” around Kirkwall by herself (whatever that meant). Eventually they came to a compromise that only ended with one cowering Mabari, one startled Bodhan who had come in to check on them, and one broken wine bottle (to be fair, Merrill simply meant to stretch her arms out, not spill the last of Hawke’s expensive Tevinter wine on the ground).

“It’s still ridiculous. I just want it known that I say this is ridiculous.” Hawke huffed, crossing her arms. The rest of her friends wisely stayed silent, but Aveline had managed to convince Hawke in the end to allow at least one of the crew to stay at her house until the alleged “two days” was up, with one guard posted outside. Hawke had decided to take a few days off of the job the night before she had even gotten into this mess, but having it enforced on her rubbed her the wrong way.

“We’ll laugh it all off in a few days, Hawke. Just let the scary guard captain have her way this time.” Varric reassured her with a smile that would have looked convincing had she not seen the tightness around his eyes. She instantly felt a small stab of guilt pulse in her stomach. After all, they were worried about her. Maybe she _was_ being the crazy one in all this. Normal people take death threats seriously. But could Hawke really include herself in that elusive category of normality? She was pretty sure that normal people weren’t saved from Darkspawn by dragons, or have mage friends that rented their bodies out to fade spirits on weekends.

Hawke took a deep breath, determined not to seem anymore bratty than she already seemed. It was especially times like this that she missed her sister, who was far, far away from Kirkwall with the rest of the Wardens. Maker’s breath, sometimes she wondered if she somehow absorbed all of Carver’s stubbornness, or if it was just a Hawke family trait. Mal yawned appallingly loud at her feet, and Hawke snapped out of her introspection. She looked around at her friends—her family—squabbling over the details of the arrangement, and she smiled.

Maybe stubbornness wasn’t limited to the Hawke family after all.

* * *

 

Hawke may have agreed to take it easy the next few days, but she sure as hell didn’t agree to sit on her ass in her manor for the entirety of the time.

Isabela and Sebastian were her first set of jailers—sorry, _protectors_. Luckily for her, they didn’t seem to take the threats as seriously as Aveline and Varric had, and so didn’t kick up as much as a fuss when she announced she wanted to head to the market. If she was going to be cooped up in the manor with extra mouths to feed, she sure as hell wasn’t going to eat scraps from random drawers in the kitchen.

She wandered up and down the market, pausing at every other stall or so, pretending that she knew exactly what she was looking for. She could almost pretend that it was a normal day—her and two of her friends searching for some obscure item on the job, or hunting for better equipment for their armor. Isabela and Sebastian trailed behind her, arguing over the supposed merits of the Blooming Rose—merits Sebastian questioned the existence of in the first place. Hawke smiled quietly to herself. Sebastian, Anders and Aveline had been especially busy as of late, and it was nice to see the entire gang back together, even if it was because of a supposed threat on her life that did the trick.

Hawke chuckled quietly to herself, and—stopping at the last stall in the row—poked at a dead trout glistening on its cart. She’d never liked fish personally. Carver could eat seven without taking a breath, but they’d always mildly disgusted her. Especially after the horrid ship ride from Fereldan to Kirkwall. If Hawke never saw another fish for—

Her scalp prickled as Hawke felt eyes follow her. It was a market—of course people were staring at the three armed foreigners, but Hawke couldn’t shake a feeling. She turned and was scanning the throngs of people arguing and haggling over their purchases, when her eyes fell on a small, tattered figure with tousled hair and scared eyes. The child was frozen in place between two stalls, clearly observing her.

Sebastian’s sermon and Isabela’s complaining faded as they both realized Hawke’s sudden prickly alertness.

“Hawke, what—“ Sebastian began, but Hawke cut across him.

“That’s the kid that fell off a roof and onto my head the other night.” She said, much too loud. As Isabela and Sebastian turned towards her gaze, the child realized he’d been made. His wary expression slid into sheer terror, and he fled. He was so small and the crowd was so vast that Hawke didn’t even consider pursuing him.

“The one that pulled at your hair and bloodied your face?” Isabela asked absentmindedly, already losing interest.

Hawke was silent a moment, staring off at the space where the child had watched her. “Yeah, that’s the one.” She reached up to rub at the small scab above her eye from the incident, thinking. Her rubbing suddenly became a slap to the forehead, as she realized she’d forgotten something. “I need to get to Ander’s clinic.”

“What? You only just saw him a few hours ago!” Isabela complained.

“Is there something wrong, Hawke?” Sebastian queried, “Something about the child?”

“The ch—no, nothing like that. I’d just forgotten something in all the commotion, that’s all. You don’t have to come, but if you fancy a trip…”

 They followed her, of course.

 

The clinic was busy.

“Maker’s left—“ Hawke shut her mouth under the heat of Sebastian’s warning glare.

Anders’ clinic wasn’t full to capacity, per se, but there were more people than Hawke had ever seen in her friend’s space. The group—desperate, quiet with either fear or illness—waited eerily silent at the entrance of the clinic, while a harried Anders was hunched over an older woman. His back was to them, but a halo of blue healing magic softened the edges of his form. The stillness of the room at odds with the number of people gave the impression of some sort of painting, a moment frozen in time.

Neither Isabela nor Sebastian protested when Hawke refrained from approaching the preoccupied mage. Hawke didn’t want to interrupt her friend’s work, especially when she was the one that dropped in unannounced during “business hours,” but nor did she want to leave to return later. She felt safe enough traveling through the area, but the anxiousness of her friends had left her… jumpy. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take a few days off to reorganize the manor. Or better yet, perhaps they could finally clean out the corpses and upturned furniture littering Fenris’ mansion.

Luckily, the crowd dispersed relatively quick. Most of those waiting were there to pick up some pungent poultice or a smoky red vial of some kind, and only a few required actual hands-on attention.

“Looks like someone is getting busier every day.” Hawke commented wryly, as an exhausted Anders perched against one of his work stations.

“Well, you stick around a few years, eventually people get used to you.” Anders replied. “Now since Isabela and Sebastian didn’t carry you in here, and you’re not bleeding all over the place, I’m guessing this isn’t a work call.”

“No, it’s, ah… it’s about your break-in.”

Anders’ eyes flashed blue for a moment, and he straightened immediately. “What have you heard?” He demanded.

“Not much. I forgot to check in with you with all… I just forgot. I talked to Solvitius. No break-ins, but had an odd request from an odd patron. Apparently some kid was asking around for some of that Hartbane stuff, with some other nondescript requests.”

Anders was silent a moment, thinking. “Aveline checked around the barracks, when I went to see her. No one has received any reports of any unusual break-ins, and no one’s heard anything on the streets about someone after rare herbs.” He turned away from her, and grabbed a book balanced precariously on a jar of spider’s silk glands. “I did get around to doing some research, and it was just what I thought—all the herbs that were taken from my clinic match a spell—this one.” He finished, handing her the open book.

Hawke took the book delicately—it was old and looked close to crumbling under her gauntleted fingers. The book was open to a page that was only half legible—parts of the text were written in another language, or had faded with age, but Hawke was able to make out the gist. “So it’s summoning spell. Like you said. Doesn’t look very harm—is this crusty stuff blood?” She said, her mouth twisting with disgust. She handed the book back gingerly. “So where do we come into this? Is this something we need to look into? _Can_ we even look into this?”

Anders dropped the book heavily onto the table with a sigh. “It can’t be _good_. But I don’t see how we can track down these people—they were thorough, Hawke. If I was anyone else, it probably would have gone unnoticed.”

“All right.” Hawke said slowly. She considered her friend, taking in the dark circles smeared around his eyes, his exhaustive lean against the desk. “Take it easy for a few days, will you? We got enough to worry about without you collapsing in your clinic… you do know how much we hate coming down here.” She teased, but her meaning was clear. If she was going under house arrest, she wasn’t about to let her crew work themselves to death in her absence.

“Sure, Hawke.” He replied, with a sad smile. Both of them knew he would do no such thing.

Hawke sighed, but wasn’t up to an argument over it.

“Let’s head back, guys,” She called over to Sebastian and Isabela, who each waited near the entrance with varying degrees of patience. Together, they left the clinic and left behind their friend with his bloodied book and his tired smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm maybe daily updates?


	3. Chapter 3

Aveline had a guard posted outside the manor that night, so Hawke didn’t exactly see why Fenris and Varric both had to watch over her, too.

“Technically speaking, Varric,” She commented dryly when the dwarf showed up unannounced at her doorstep, “Fenris is the only one on guard duty tonight.”

“It’s not _guard duty_.” The elf protested from the main hall. “Why must you always be so—“

“I thought I’d be a guard from your guard, Hawke.” Varric interrupted. He tossed a bottle of something expensive and strong at Hawke, who caught it deftly with one hand. “Plus, I figured we could all use a bit of that. Been saving it for a special occasion. Threats on your life?” He chuckled, “I’d rate that up there with name-days and funerals. Broody.” He nodded as Fenris approached the scene.

“Varric.” Fenris greeted, ignoring the pointed remark the dwarf had led with. “Always a pleasure, I suppose I’m obligated to say.”

The dwarf laughed. “Don’t get all mushy on me now, Fen. Really takes away from the whole gloomy elf reputation you’ve been cultivating for the last few years.”

Fenris rolled his eyes, pretending not to hear Hawke’s snicker at his expense. “I’ll go find glasses.” He announced, and left the pair in the doorway.

“Come on, Varric, why’d you really end up in my neck of the woods?” Hawke asked, watching her friend slip off and wring the water from his gloves. It’d been raining nonstop, starting practically the moment she set foot in the manner. She supposed she was due for some good luck, but that didn’t prevent her from pitying Sebastian and Isabela as they scampered back to their own Kirkwall hidey-holes after leaving her at her doorstep.

She waited for the inevitable joke or teasing crack, but Varric’s serious expression was nothing but sincere when he met her eyes. He gave up on the gloves, tossing them wetly onto the bench before answering. “Kirkwall’s getting scarier, Hawke. I hear all the underground talk. With these Qunari…” he trailed off with a shrug. “I don’t know. We’re pissing a lot of people off. More than our usual weekly quota.” He smirked for a moment, before falling serious again. “I’m just saying you need to be careful. Take it from the dwarf—sometimes little things become big, bad things.”

Hawke frowned. She appreciated Varric’s concern. She appreciated all of her friends’ concern, much as she thought it was misplaced. But recently she felt her group, her crew, was spreading a little too thin. Everyone had their own lives—she knew that. She knew they—well, most of them—were all trying to make Kirkwall a little better. Maker knew, she never _intentionally_ tried to make things harder for the city she now called home. But it was easy to lose the big picture when trying to fix too many of the small ones. Running jobs for Solivitus or clearing out mercenary groups around the Wounded Coast was all well and fine, but Hawke sometimes forgot about the growing tensions between Kirkwall and the Qunari, or the ever-tightening noose around the neck of the city’s mages. She was thankful every day that Bethany made it out with the Wardens before she was eventually sucked into the black pit of the Gallows.

Hawke caught Varric’s eye and shook her head, clearing out her darkening thoughts. “Sorry, Varric. I know you’re just here to help. And to drink all my alcohol.”

Her friend grinned at her, “Don’t forget, Hawke. I came well-supplied this time around.”

 

Hawke’s head spun as she got up from the table. She groaned, not sure how she forgot her self-inflicted ban off any alcohol that Varric brought over. It was late, the candles having dripped down to practically nothing in their holders.

Varric was the scariest drinking buddy she’d ever had. He always seemed sober as a fish, or at the very least he acted drunk when he was sober. Either way, it was impossible to tell when he was finishing his first glass or his twelfth. Damned dwarves. It wasn’t until his head slipped from his hand and he nearly bashed his head against the table that Hawke decided to call it. Her friend was either very, very tired, or very, very drunk. Possibly a combination. Hawke found it hard to think comprehensibly, and decided to shelve her friend’s insane alcohol tolerance level for a different day.

She walked unsteadily around the table, and caught Fenris’ eye. He seemed to take his duty of watching over her seriously, as he hadn’t had more than a glass of the potent alcohol. Catching her meaning, Fenris rose from his perch at the end of the table and aided Hawke in rousing and escorting Varric into her mother’s bedroom. Leandra, thank the Maker, was away visiting friends in Ostwick for the past three days, and wasn’t due back for at least another few weeks. Leandra had a soft spot for the dwarf—Hawke figured she wouldn’t mind loaning her bed out for one night.

With Varric squared away in wherever it was dwarves went when they dreamed, Hawke headed across the upper level to her own suite. Fenris trailed behind her and remained in the doorway as she began to dig through her drawers, searching for night clothes. After selecting clothes at random, she turned to face the elf.

She was more than a little out of sorts from the alcohol and not in the mood to entertain. “Fenris? You planning on sleeping propped against the doorframe or are you waiting for something?” It came out ruder than she intended, but Fenris didn’t seem to take offense.

“Bodhan has graciously decided to bunk with Sandal for the night, and left me his room.” Fenris explained, but she caught the worried expression in his eyes before he managed to smother it completely.

“Uh-huh, sure. At least drag a chair out by the door, Fenris, if you’re going to sleep in the hallway.”

The elf blinked at her with an unreadable expression on his face, but padded into the room silently. His gauntleted fists closed tightly around the top of the chair, but he made no move to drag it to the hallway.

“Hawke, you know they’re just worried.” He started awkwardly, looking down at his hands on the chair, before glancing up at her.

Hawke had been reaching for a brush, but let her hand fall against the smoothness of the table instead. “Not you though?” She teased.

He blanched, and the lyrium lines looked darker against his skin. “That’s not… you…” He spit out, and Hawke’s grin dropped immediately.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to put you on the spot, Fen.” Embarrassed for no reason, she turned her back on him to reach for the brush. Silence rang for a moment, but she heard the creak of the chair as Fenris settled into it, ostensibly still in her room.

“When I… worked… for Danarius, he received a lot of threats.” Hawke turned in surprise, her fist clenching uncomfortably around the old splintery brush. Fenris usually never talked about his time in Tevinter, or his time as Danarius’s slave. She couldn’t blame him. Fenris’ gaze dipped lower to the fireplace, where nothing but embers remained. “Not all of them were death threats, but Danarius wasn’t the type to let any kind of threat go. He sent me—not usually me, but sometimes—to… deal with those sending threats.” Fenris fell silent for a moment, his eyes not moving from the dying coals, and Hawke couldn’t have interrupted if she wanted to. “I killed them, of course. Or worse. But I always did exactly what he wanted me to do. It would have been easy to aid them, help them in some way to end Danarius. They always begged in the end, promised to free me or give me anything I wanted.” Hawke didn’t miss the way he consciously unclenched his hands in his lap. “I didn’t, though. Not once. I always did what he wanted. I did exactly what he said.” Another pause, longer this time. “What I’m saying is that some people take threats very seriously. You can’t always talk your way out of it. You have people looking out for you and trying to keep you safe,” he suppressed a shudder, but even more-than-slightly inebriated, Hawke could read the tension in his muscles, “but sometimes that isn’t enough, Hawke.”

She didn’t say anything as he stood, dragged the chair into the hallway, and shut the door behind him.

* * *

 

She’d been worried about not being able to sleep that night, after the stress of the posters, her friends’ concerns, or Fenris’ hair-raising anecdote, but the alcohol smoothed the way into sleep, and she slept like the dead. Until she didn’t.

She wasn’t sure if it was the sound of someone charging into her room that woke her or the screams from across the manor, but she was up and armed before her door was fully open.

A headache was already beginning to form between her eyes, but otherwise her mind was sharp, fueled by adrenaline. Fenris was in the door frame, one hand clenched around his sword, the other tight on the door handle. His eyes took in the whole room in one sweep before settling on her, looking relieved and more anxious than she’d ever seen him. Hawke shifted her own sword in her sweaty palms, and with the subtleness of an authority built over hundreds of fights, nodded at him. He nodded back, and the two of them were out the door and down the stairs. She glanced over as they rushed into the main room, noting his full battle-ready attire compared to her soft and extremely indefensible loose shirt she’d stolen from Carver years ago and slept in ever since he—

“—was killed!” Orana shrieked from outside the house. Her words became incomprehensible as she slipped into high-pitched Tevene. Her panic flooded Hawke’s nerves as she burst out into the dim morning light, Fenris right on her heels. She nearly fell as she slipped barefoot into something cool and thick. She stopped beside the hysteric elf, and looked down blankly at the blood— for it could only be blood—that she seemed to splashed all over her feet and lower legs.

“ _Fasta vass._ ” Fenris spit out, and she turned to see the damage.

The guard Aveline had posted was impaled several inches off the ground, directly into the stone wall of her manor. A bolt had struck him directly in the neck and he hung limply, the last of his lifeblood draining into the large crimson puddle at Hawke’s feet. The entire scene looked fake, staged. The fact the guard retained his helmet and his face was hidden added to the illusion.

Hawke and Fenris jumped as a noise sounded behind him, and both spun in unison, swords poised to strike. Hawke was the first to register the intruders were Varric and Bianca. Varric looked tired and hungover combined with the look of someone that had just been tricked into swallowing a bitter pill.

“Nothing. If this happened anytime recent, they cleared out quick.” Still gripping his crossbow tightly, Varric avoided the blood and joined them in the doorway.

Hawke let out a choked, strangled laugh. “Aveline is gonna have my head for this.”

Ignoring her inappropriately timed humor, Fenris approached the corpse. “There’s still blood dripping, but the puddle is large enough to suggest it’s been at least an hour since he…” He trailed off. “ _Venhedis._ ” He cursed again.

Hawke stepped gingerly out of the blood, suddenly as sober as a Sister in a Chantry. She made her way to the corpse. Her hand hovered over the bolt, but moved lower down over his chest instead. She drew aside what was now shredded clothing and ruined armor. She sucked in a breath as she saw that true source of the blood was from multiple stab wounds in the guard’s chest and stomach. Though the wounds were no longer seeping blood, the clothing was still soaked thoroughly enough to give the appearance of a dripping corpse. Hawke studied the pristinely clean helmet and leaned forward before she lost her nerve to pull the armor off the corpse. The face of an unknown guard—and though she hated to admit it, it was easier not knowing him—stared blankly ahead, head propped up upon the bolt. His eyes had filmed over in death and his mouth hung open in the slackness of a corpse before rigor mortis has set in. But those weren’t the details Hawke noticed at first. The most glaring feature was the carefully, almost artfully, painted number across the guard’s face in what looked to be a mixture of black paint and his own blood.

“‘One.’” Varric read, breaking the spell of silence that had fallen over the group. Even Orana’s hysterics had silenced in the calmness of their study of the guard’s body.

Hawke’s eyes slid over the corpse and landed on Bodhan’s fearful gaze coming from the main room, his arm huddled around a confused and sleepy Sandal. Both were still in sleep attire, meaning that it was still in the early hours, despite the brightness of the morning.

“Orana,” Hawke quietly, “you can go back inside.”

The frightened elf nodded thankfully and hurried back inside, keeping as much distance between her and the body as possible.

“Right.” Hawke muttered under her breath. With a last glance behind her, Hawke leaned her sword up against the door frame, and wrapped both hands around the bolt speared through the man’s neck and yanked hard. Even with the muscles earned over years of swinging a broadsword, it took four tries before the bolt finally gave and tumbled, along with the guard— _Stuart,_ she suddenly recalled Aveline saying his name—loudly to the ground. She retrieved her sword, her shirt now wet and cool in the morning breeze, stained with blood from where she had accidently pressed against the corpse in her exertions.

Hawke stood still for a moment, hair wild, dried blood flecked on her feet and legs, fist clenched around her sword, standing tall in nothing but a loose and bloodied shirt, and Maker’s flaming asshole if she didn’t feel like the damn spirit of Justice herself.

 

Her first move was to haul the body inside, and the second was to get dressed—properly. Varric had left to chase down Aveline, and returned just as Hawke finished cinching the last of her heavy armor on.

“After she physically shook me for a few minutes, she ordered us to stay put. Operative word here being _ordered._ ”

Hawke and Fenris traded looks, but neither was surprised.

“Should I send runners? Gather the rest of—“

“ _No._ ” Hawke interrupted emphatically. Seeing the surprise register on the dwarf’s face, she added, “Just… wait. Let’s wait. I want to talk to Aveline first.”

Varric didn’t argue, but she knew he could see through her pathetic request.

Aveline appeared within minutes. Aveline was nothing if not impressive in her gleaming armor, flanked on either side by two guards. Aveline paused at the puddle of blood still drying in the morning sun, but no emotion passed over her features as she stepped around what remained of Stuart on the walkway.

She marched into the entryway, her eyes immediately landing on Stuart’s corpse resting on one of the solid wooden benches running along the wall of the room. The two guards filled the doorway behind her, silent. Hawke watched as Aveline studied the corpse dispassionately, drinking in the stab wounds and the gaping hole in his neck. When she reached the unnerving number painted across his face, her face softened, and she sighed quietly. Looking ten years older, she gestured the guards in. “Take him to the barracks.”

Hawke was silent as the men piled into the entranceway and hefted their fellow guard off the bench. Without a word, they plodded down the bloodied walkway and turned the corner out of her sight.

Aveline pulled the door shut behind her and strode into the main floor. Mal perked up from where he was stretched in front of the fire. Seeing Aveline, he crossed the room in two bounds and batted at the guard captain’s armored hand until she gave in and rubbed behind his ears.

“So tell me what happened.” She ordered, straightening back to her full height. “And no jokes, Hawke. He was a good kid.”

Hawke held her hands up in surrender. “Lucky for you, I’m not in a joking mood.”

Aveline’s expression never wavered as they explained the morning’s events, and being on the receiving side of the guard captain’s cross-examination was discomfiting. Hawke was used to occasionally helping Aveline _with_ her work, not adding to it—though Aveline might beg to differ.

“Hawke?” Varric asked quietly as Hawke finished summing up the moment.

Hawke didn’t exactly sigh, but nodded at the dwarf with more than a hint of exasperation. He excused himself and headed out the door.

“Gathering everyone.” Hawke explained to the two questioning faces. “I told him it’s _fine_ and there’s no reason to bother everyone, but you know how _he_ gets.” She bent down to rub Mal’s flank, ignoring the glances Fenris and Aveline exchanged.

“Aveline, I’m sorry about your man. I am. Really. He was only here because of me and these damn… posters, notes, whatever. I wish he hadn’t been—“

Aveline’s well-practiced _shut-up-now-Hawke_ expression was out in full force by the time Hawke glanced up and the rest of the sentence died on her tongue.

“If Stuart hadn’t been there, it could very well have been you or one of your houseguests impaled on the wall this morning. And I’m more inclined to lean towards the former, Hawke.” Aveline crossed her arms, a casual gesture that exuded more calm authority than Hawke had felt trained on her since she was a little girl. “Stuart knew his duty, and he died on the job. That’s what he—they all—signed up for.”

Hawke felt transparent as she let Aveline’s not-so-motherly comforting ease a little of the guilt off her shoulders. Aveline had been a part of their patchwork family the longest, and as a consequence, Hawke often took for granted her oldest friend. She smothered a sad smile, thinking of Carver and Bethany. One dead and one Maker-knows-where. She took for granted the family that somehow had accidently formed around her in her few years in Kirkwall. An unexpected wave of relief flooded her as she thought of the rest of her friends on their way, and she sent silent thanks after Varric.

 

For having short legs, Varric got around a lot more quickly than most. Within the hour, Kirkwall’s best and brightest had finished tracking mud through her house. By the time everyone was brought up to speed, and been sufficiently fed by the Bodhan-Orana tag team, the sun was high in the sky. It was a blistering day.

It seemed everyone had a different solution. Merrill offered to house Hawke in her small home, but that was shot down as being even more indefensible than Hawke’s manor. Sebastian said—loudly, many times—that the Chantry was the safest place, but Hawke wasn’t willing to put that many people at risk. Isabela was all for commandeering a ship out of the docks and sailing off—but Hawke was pretty sure that Isabela had forgotten what they were talking about and was just throwing ideas out.

Finally, a silence fell, each person thinking hard.

Sitting silent in the manor, surrounded by friends pulled a faint memory from the back of Hawke’s mind.

It must have been more than two decades ago, when a bandit crew led a sudden raid against Lothering. Scrambling and unprepared, anyone old enough to know one end of the sword from another found themselves with a borrowed weapon in one hand and a probable death sentence in the other.

The few Templars stationed at the Chantry attempted to take control of the situation. Hawke had been hurriedly hidden away the Chantry along with the rest of Lothering’s children.

She remembered crouching in the corner, toddlers Bethany and Carver huddled on either side of her. It was cold, the beginning of winter. Her muscles ached with tension, her hands painfully tight on the sides of the twins, but neither complained. Sounds of battle drifted in as if from a distance, but she knew it was much closer.

She tried to take comfort from the twins’ warmth, but all she could think about was the knife in the side table by her bed. Her father had given it to her three years ago, when she’d started exploring the fields behind Lothering. It wouldn’t make a difference if it was here, in her hand, or at home. It wouldn’t make a difference if she even armed with a broadsword—she wouldn’t be able to save herself, the twins, or anyone if a bandit made it into the Chantry.

She still remembered feeling that helplessness with the same sharpness she felt then. It was what had driven her to train almost daily in the years following—so she’d never feel that way again. But she had. She remembered that biting feeling at Malcolm’s funeral, at Ostagar, their flight from Lothering with that horrible end, and nearly losing Bethany to the darkspawn taint.

Lothering had pushed back the bandit attack with minimal casualties. It hadn’t been a full force, only a splinter group with hungry bellies and too much confidence.

She was surrounded by her friends, in her family home—safe. But her hand closed around a knife that wasn’t there, but buried in the ashes of that last place she’d ever felt safe.

* * *

 

Unbeknownst to her, Aveline and Varric had been hitting up all their respective sources and contacts, trying to hunt down even the faintest of leads. Unfortunately, both had hit the same fat wall of nothing.

Varric’s feelers out into Kirkwall’s shadier elements came back empty and even Aveline’s far-fetched last resort to find anyone purchasing large amounts of vellum for the posters turned up nothing.

So they did nothing.

Aveline had slipped out quickly to make sure her force could handle business without her. The rest of them were spread around the manor. Merrill and Sebastian were eating Orana’s hastily made—but still delicious—lunch. Isabela had disappeared off to somewhere in the manor, leaving Hawke trying _very_ hard not to think about the trouble Isabela could cause loose in her home. Anders was sleeping on one of the library chairs with a large mabari sprawled on his lap.

And Hawke and Varric and Fenris read a book. Or rather, Fenris read a book. Or even more rather, Varric and Hawke talked down an irritated Fenris, who grumbled about the trials of having to learn to read from Hawke—whose handwriting was atrocious—and Varric, who typically tricked Fenris into reading out loud grotesquely romantic and flowery love poetry.

But night eventually fell, as it eventually always does.

They’d all settled in the main room. No one was sleeping—not even the eternally exhausted Anders, or the too-trusting-and-can-sleep-anywhere Merrill.

Bodhan had thrown a few more logs onto the roaring fire and politely disappeared back into his and Sandal’s room for the night. Orana had been asleep for hours, exhausted and still shaken after the morning’s fright.

Hawke didn’t blame her. She personally was torn between wanting to sleep for a week, and never wanting to sleep again for the rest of her life. She scrubbed a hand down her face and sighed. Before the silence became uncomfortable, she broke it. “Going to tell us any scary stories, Varric? I can’t remember the last time I’ve sat around a fire that wasn’t for cooking.”

Varric laughed. “You want a ghost story, Hawke? You?”

Hawke narrowed her eyes. “What are you implying, Tethras?”

The dwarf held up his hands, feigning submission. “Only that the last time I told you a ghost story, Hawke, you refused to walk home and ended up taking over my bed for the night. This poor dwarf had to sleep on his uncomfortable chair, and you know how much I need my beauty rest.”

Hawke sputtered. Actually sputtered. “I wasn’t _scared!”_ She cried, her voice higher by at least an octave. “We…we drank a _lot_ …and…”

The grin on Varric’s face stretched from ear to ear—something Hawke hadn’t seen since Varric caught Aveline trip over a bottom stair and fall ass-first in a puddle. “Alright, for Hawke’s sake, let’s pretend that I’m fresh out of the scary ones. Why don’t you tell us a story for once, Hawke?”

 Hawke leaned back against the high-backed chair she’d dragged in from the library. “Stories, huh.”

“Weren’t you at Ostagar, Hawke?” Merrill queried from her position near the fire. The flames threw her features into shadow, and Hawke saw Bethany for a moment in Merrill’s smudged features for a half second.

Hawke stared for a moment, before realizing everyone was silent, waiting for her to speak. “Mal?” The dog perked at his name. He crossed the room and settled heavily at Hawke’s side. She smiled, forgetting the ghost of her sister in the room and scratched her puppy behind the ears. “Yeah, Carver and I were there.” She replied, answering Merrill, not looking up to see a new impression of her brother in the flames. “Aveline, too.”

Aveline confirmed with a distracted nod—probably also caught up with her own ghosts from Ostagar.

“I heard it was horrible.” Merrill said sadly.

“Horrible for the Wardens, maybe.” Anders supplied. He’d brought over the horrible, bloody book from his clinic. He’d been pouring over it for the better part of an hour. Hawke hadn’t mentioned it though. The trail for the stolen herbs had led nowhere fast.

“Horrible.” She echoed. It was funny that she and Carver had been there. After Loghain had called the retreat and the Wardens had been slaughtered by the darkspawn, it seemed funny that anyone had even been there at all. Her brother and her had been in the rear of the retreat, and still had dealt the finishing blow to plenty of darkspawn. Still, the fall of Lothering had almost carried a sense of poetic justice. She’d left others to lose their lives. So she’d lost her life in Lothering as retribution. Mal broke her out of her reverie but not-so-gently butting his rock of a head against her thigh. She smiled. “Carver and I found Mal out there, though. Sleeping, of course.”

Mal yawned atrociously in demonstration. Even Fenris chuckled.

“I always assumed you’d grown up with the wee beast.” Sebastian said, “Don’t you Fereldens always grow up with mabari?”

“If that’s your way of calling me a dog lord, Seb, I’ll take the compliment.” Hawke laughed. “No, we’d barely brought him back to Lothering before we had to leave again. Loved Carver to death, this one. Carver’s the one that dragged him out from the bush he was sleeping under and carried him a half dozen yards before the huge bastard finally woke up.”

“Mal’s short for your father’s name?” Fenris asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Yeah, Malcolm. Malcolm Hawke. I don’t know why Carver picked it. Seems strange to honor your dead father by naming a war hound after him.” Hawke had thought it was a stupid thing to do, right up until she lost her brother forever.

“Worse things to name after your dead parents, mate.” Isabela chimed in. “Met an ugly bastard in Estwatch a few years back—named his prick after his dead mother. You’ll never guess what _her_ name was—“

"Bela!” Hawke cried quickly. The pirate had a pleased grin plastered all over her smug face.

Silence.

“Trudy.”

“Maker’s _breath_.”

“The Hero of Ferelden was at Ostagar, too.” Varric mused, “If the stories are true.”

“She was there.” Anders replied, finally giving up on his disgusting book. He shut it with a muted bang, and Hawke glanced distastefully from where it balanced on his knee.

“I always forget you palled around with her for a bit.” Varric said, idly scratching the side of his neck. Bianca rested against the side of his chair. He usually left his girl in the foyer when he came to visit—but today’s unique circumstances apparently had Varric wanting his weapon close.

Anders snorted. “Sure you do. That’s why you’re not down in my clinic every other week trying to scrape together enough material for another book.”

Hawke feigned shock. “Am I hearing that I’m not the only startling good-looking and attractive hero of your stories, Varric?”

“Hate to break it to you, kid. Also, leave the story-telling to us professionals. Good-looking and attractive mean the same thing.”

“Oh, sorry, Master Tethras.” Hawke continued the banter, but she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Maybe moldy breakfast cheese had been a bad idea after all.

“Besides, Blondie, you didn’t meet her until after she’d already stopped the Blight. Hardly counts. Your stories are second-hand. And rumor is, she never talked all that much.”

Anders laughed so hard, the book slid off his lap and hit the floor loud enough that Mal let out a surprised bark. “You’re _joking_. Could never shut that one up. I’ll tell you, I didn’t have one night of uninterrupted sleep before she would be poking me awake with _another_ question. And her voice! Definitely not what I expected from—“

“Hawke!” Fenris loudly interrupted, focusing the room’s attention.

Hawke had doubled over in her chair, the pain had gone from annoying to debilitating in a matter of seconds. It felt like her insides were _squirming_. “I’m—“ She started to reassure before the pain intensified. She felt a gauntled hand grip her arm, but she barely felt it. Hawke felt her insides melting and she felt a scream rip its way out of her throat, only to be lost in the chaos of the room. A bright light exploded in front of her eyes, accompanied by the sound of furniture and bodies crashing into each other, into walls. Suddenly the pain reached a crescendo, and Hawke liquefied.

           

It wasn’t that Hawke couldn’t roll with the punches.

Exploding in her home, and waking up surrounded by shadowy figures in some place definitely _not_ her home—that was new.

She passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Here was what Hawke’s figured out.

  1. She was not in Kirkwall. Here’s how she knew.



She had woken in a dark, empty room with no windows and one door. There was a thin pallet for sleeping, a bucket that she hoped she wouldn’t have to investigate, and a small table with a lantern lighting the room. No blankets. No food. No water. So probably a cell. Probably a cell somewhere in the Wounded Coast, judging by how wet everything was.

  1. Literally every single part of her hurt. Here’s what she figures.



Probably had to do with the fact she was _summoned_ , like some low-caliber demon or spirit. Suddenly, she felt a little sorry for the bastards.

Not that sorry.

  1. She is completely, undeniably, utterly pissed off. Here’s what was going to happen.



She is going to figure out a way out of her cell and absolutely murder the piss out of every single person that had her kidnapped, and a left a dead guard on her doorstep to prove it.

She’d moved over to the pallet, not that it was much more comfortable. Even the five step trek was almost too much to bear. She collapsed on the uncomfortable padding, resting her back against the wall. Eyes closed, she made the pain more manageable with deep breathing exercises her father had taught her. Easy enough for him, though. He could heal himself up in less than ten seconds.

She was being uncharitable. But Hawke figured she deserved to feel uncharitable at the moment.

She’d been armed and wearing armor when she’d been summoned. She’d woken in nothing but the thin leggings she wore under her armor and a simple shift that had seen better days. She idly picked at a crust of… something on the hem of the shirt, waiting.

She didn’t wait long after that. She heard someone walking noisily down a hallway somewhere beyond her cell. A pause outside her door, a jangling of keys and the slide of one into the lock.

An elf slid into the room, and the door shut behind him by another hand. Probably a guard posted outside.

The elf had a long shock of blonde hair, and green eyes that were livid with checked fury. He glared down at where she leaned against the wall. She hadn’t moved an inch at his arrival, not from lack of desire to pound his face in.

The elf didn’t say anything for a few moments, just studied her. His hand rested on the sword at his waist, and she didn’t miss the way his knuckles whitened as he clenched his fist painfully tight around the hilt.

“So, is this where you explain to me why you went through all the trouble of summoning me instead of just sending a polite invitation? I probably would have come. Work’s been awfully slow.”

“Shut up.” He took a half step forward before he caught himself. His liquid green eyes shut for a moment and he seemed to calm himself down.

"Wow.” Hawke said dryly. “Usually I only get that reaction from people that have to see me on a daily basis. So are you going to tell me why I’m here, or not? Because I can guess about half of it.” Steeling herself, she used the wall to help her get to her feet. She swayed once as a wave of pain rippled through her before becoming muted again. “ _Qunari bitch_ seemed pretty self-explanatory. Last I checked though, pretty sure I wasn’t a Qunari. No horns. You’re probably right about the bitch—“ Her thought was cut off by a sudden coughing spasm. She coughed wetly into her hand, and when the fit finally subsided, she was only half surprised to look down and see a small pool of blood in her palm.  
           

The elf watched her impassively, making no reply to her gibe or her coughing up blood.

Hawke wiped blood off her chin and smeared it on the front of her shift. “Guess your little summoning spell wasn’t meant to work on humans. Let me guess—you’re the ones that stole from Anders’ clinic? Couldn’t find heartbane from any other channels, so you decided to steal from a damn healing clinic? Maker’s breath, you villains always go above and beyond, don’t you?”      

The elf was familiar. Blonde hair that was almost white, and green eyes. Older. Hawke squinted at his face, trying to place him. Her eyes fell to his sword. It was a beastly thing. Almost like—

"Is that a darkspawn sword?” She heard herself ask before she could stop herself.

The elf’s expression abruptly turned feral, and in his anger and fury Hawke remembered who he reminded her of.

“I’m not surprised you recognize it, since you snatched it off my sister’s body before her blood even began to cool.” He snapped, and he pulled the sword out and held it in the air between them.

Hawke blinked, and it was like she was standing in the Kirkwall courtyard a few weeks ago, staring up at the Elven fanatic and her crew before their final battle. They were part of a group that had placed barrels of saar-qamak—poison gas that turns people into frenzied, rabid killers before eventually killing them—around Kirkwall in order to incite violence against the Qunari. Hawke blinked again, and was back in the present, eyes on the sword inches from her throat. The sword was nearly identical to the one she had lifted from the elf and had given to Fenris.

"Like it?” The elf said, and pulled the sword back a few inches to examine it in the dim lantern light. “It’s the twin of Mewyn’s sword. This one is called The Brother’s Beginning. Hers was called The Brother’s End. You should probably know the name of the sword you stole off a corpse. Not that you’ll ever see it again.”

Hawke swayed, and her vision blurred for a moment. Her hand reached out to find purchase on the stone wall behind her, but she refused to sit back down. “You really did all this to get your fucking sword back? You could have just written a strongly worded letter. Your posters were pretty vague.” She felt another coughing fit tickle in her throat, but she smothered it down.

“I’ll pry the sword from your friend’s dead grip soon enough. But you should really worry about yourself, Hawke.”

“Great, I’ll do that.” She said, sarcasm as thick as jam on toast.

The elf studied her for a moment, taking in her weakening body, and sheathed the sword. He spun on his heel and banged three times on the door. It opened a crack and the elf had a brief conversation with someone posted outside. The door shut again and the elf turned back to her, seemingly calmer.

“I thought you were supposed to be invincible, Hawke. That’s what the rumors say. Don’t tell me that you’re just a weak little girl, after all? I expected some fight out of you.”

"Why don’t you ask your sister how tough I am.”

The elf’s eyes flashed in that way only elves eyes do. He lunged across the open space, his fist poised to punch her square in the jaw. But Hawke was expecting it. She straightened from her slouch, caught the elf’s fist and redirected his fist slightly so he cracked it against the wall behind her. Before the pain registered on his face, Hawke lashed out with her own fist and punched the bastard neatly on his right cheekbone. It was fast and beautiful, but unfortunately, too much for her body. She felt her insides heave agonizingly and she fell to one knee, coughing up more vile blood. That was two seconds before a knee connected painfully in her face. She fell sideways, half on the pallet. Her vision winked, but she maintained consciousness long enough to feel her arms bound behind her before they hauled her from the room.

* * *

 

She couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. Injuries were like that. Brief impressions and images passed in front of her eyes, but she couldn’t be sure if she was dreaming or having an out of body experience.

She remembered obscure figures reaching towards her with glowing hands. She remembered feeling horrible heat inside of her and then blessed coolness. She remembered seeing the scared little boy from a few days ago, who had fallen on her in a dark alley, and who she had seen later in the market. She remembered seeing his eyes, wide with fear and pity. There were other eyes too. Liquid green eyes that glared down at her, ruthless and without mercy.

But mostly she remembered pain and darkness.

* * *

 

She returned to consciousness sluggishly, but without disorientation. Her eyes opened, and she took in the room—her prison. She was alone. She had been left painfully on her side, and her shoulder ached from the hard stone flooring, but she didn’t move for a few moments.

Minutes passed. Still no sounds from outside. Hawke rolled onto her back with a groan and felt her shoulder tingle cold with relief. She felt better. Not great. But not like her insides were rebelling against the rest of her, just her stomach aching from hunger.

“Hey!” She yelled, pulling herself into a sitting position before her body could convince her to go back to sleep. “I know you’re standing out there! I’m starving! I don’t know what idiot plan you freaks have, but I’m guessing you want me alive for it!”

There was a solid minute of silence, and Hawke wondered if maybe her door was unguarded after all. Then, finally, she heard cursing, and then someone trudging off down a hallway.

She patted her gurgling stomach, pleased.

She could piece together what had happened. She’d been given the rough attention of some healers. So this group extended beyond that elf prick and the guard outside her cell. And obviously, they didn’t want her dead. Or didn’t want her dead _yet_. And she knew—well, killed—the elf’s sister, so he clearly wasn’t her biggest fan. So, revenge.

She let her head thunk back against the cold wall. It had that strange cold quality that borders on feeling damp. Regardless, it felt good. She reached up and idly threaded her fingers through her hair. More than a few knots. She must look like shit warmed over.

 _They must be so worried._ It was the first _actual_ thought she’d given to her friends’ worry. She knew she’d be tearing down every door in Kirkwall until she found one of her friends if they’d been… magically kidnapped. They had no way of knowing literally anything that happened. She’d just up and poofed her ass out of town. She’d have to figure this out on her own. No Varric connections, no lock picks Isabela stored only Maker-knows-where.

She sat straighter when she heard footsteps coming down the hall, but didn’t attempt to stand.

A deep voice barked something she couldn’t make out, and the door cracked open just wide enough for a child to be thrust in before it banged shut.

Hawke froze for a moment, before the child’s terrified eyes met her own and she realized she hadn’t dreamed about the kid earlier after all.

He was filthy, covered in disgusting clothing not even fit to clean the ground, and looked malnourished. His eyes were bright blue and wild. He was scared out of his mind. She frowned.

Pulling herself up to her feet slowly, she held her hands out in front of her. The boy scrambled backwards, dropping a bucket and a small wrapped bundle she hadn’t noticed. “It’s okay.” She said, trying to sound reassuring, but probably looking like a bloody savage as usual. “I’m not going to hurt you. We’ve met before, right? In the alley? And again at the market?”

The boy didn’t so much as nod. Great. She’d always been absolute rubbish with children. She pursed her lips, trying to think of what to try next. She opened her mouth—probably to say something absolutely wrong and terrifying—when the boy said in a rush, “Are you going to kill me?”

Hawke deflated, and leaned back against the wall. “I can guarantee you that I won’t. I’m friends with the guard captain and _she_ is the scariest woman alive. Wouldn’t cross that woman if you paid me.” She paused for a moment. “Are they hurting you here?”

The kid buried his face in his hands and abruptly started sobbing. Hawke was relieved for a moment Varric wasn’t around to see this. She would never hear the bloody end of it.

“I’m so sorry,” He blurted thickly. She could only make out a few snatches of words through his blubbering, “…offered me food… took your hair…  asked about… didn’t mean…”

Hawke sighed. So they’d paid the kid off with food to grab some of her hair and look around the markets for heartbane. Solivitus had said that one kid poking his nose into shops wouldn’t seem unusual, it just hadn’t occurred to her that the two incidents were related. The kid had quieted down, making small choking noises. She smoothed her hair back, wondering where to even begin.

“Listen,” she tried, “I’ve definitely been on the wrong side of an empty belly. I’m not going to hurt you. I just have a few questions.” She waited, not wanting to push.

The boy wiped his nose with his sleeve and nodded.

“What’s your name? You can call me Hawke, if you want.”

"I know who you are.” He said, finally meeting her eyes. “M’name’ is Thom.”

“Hullo, Thom. Do you know where we are?”

“Somewhere near the coast, I think. They gave me something on the way here and I fell asleep.”

Hawke huffed out an annoyed breath. Paranoid bastards. Still, The Wounded Coast, as she thought. She could work with that.

“Is there any way for you and I to get out of here? Any unguarded doors or openings?” She’d first have to worry about getting out of the cell, but any information was good enough for now.

Thom shrugged. “Maybe. They don’t let me walk around much. But I’ve seen one entrance. It’s guarded, and it’s locked. I think only Alrith has a key. I don’t know about the rest.”

“Alrith is the elf? Blonde? Absolute prick?”

Thom giggled and nodded before turning solemn again. “Hawke?” He said slowly, as if testing the name. “What are they going to do to you?”

She sighed. That had been her next question. “I don’t know, Thom. Guess we’ll find out soon.” She glanced at the items he had dropped earlier. “Those for me?”

He followed her gaze and gave a start. “Oh!” He hurriedly picked up both items. “I’m supposed to clean the bucket and give you this!” He handed the wrapped parcel over. Hawke’s stomach gurgled after she unwrapped it and saw a hard chunk of bread and a half eaten carrot. She glanced around the room and noticed that a pitcher presumably containing water had been left on the small table with the lantern.

“Well, you’re off the hook with the bucket, Thom. Haven’t had the pleasure of using it yet.”

Thom looked relieved, but tried to hide it. As if on cue, the guard banged hard on the door three times, startling Thom into dropping the bucket he had just retrieved. “I hafta go.” He said quickly, but didn’t take a step or meet her eyes.

“It’s okay, Thom. I’ll get us out of here. Just keep an eye out for me, okay?” She smiled. He gave her a small, sad smile that looked decades too old to be on a small kid’s face. He nodded. Picking up the bucket, he knocked once on the door.

A gruff voice barked, “Back against the far wall, bitch.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t reply, already leaning against the aforementioned wall. The door opened enough for Thom to scurry out. He tossed her one last worried look, and she winked. With another slam of the door, he was gone.

Hawke took a bite of the bread and chewed slowly. Disgusting, but her stomach wasn’t complaining. So she had a shot out of here. Maybe. She didn’t want to put the kid in any danger, but they’d both be safer if she was able to spring them both. As long as she figured out how to do it before Alrith and his merry band of Qunari-hating assholes were able to do whatever it was they were planning first.

* * *

 

One hunk of bread, one sad carrot, half a pitcher of water and one use of the smelly-corner bucket later and she figured at least an hour had passed before Alrith finally returned to her cell.

“Aw, you’re back. Sweet of you to come visit.” She said, enjoying the angry clench of his jaw. “Are you finally going to tell me why I’m here?”

He ignored her, and looked her up and down, probably checking to see if she was going to keel over again. She raised an eye at his scrutiny, but didn’t comment. Three other figures emerged behind him in the door way, armed. Three warriors, plus the guard outside, Alrith and at least two mages. So she would have to fight at least seven in order to escape, and she wasn’t armed or wearing any protective armor. Not the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, but she still didn’t like the odds.

“Restrain her.” Alrith said coldly. Hawke was on her feet in a second, tense. The three goons entered the room. The first one was a red-headed human, shorter than her, but looking more like the offspring of an ogre than any human she’d ever seen. The second and third must have been elven brothers, if not twins. Equally ugly, one had a wicked burn scar across the right side of his face, and his brother had tattooed an almost similar mark across his face in apparent solidarity. It would have been sweet if they weren’t closing in on her.

The ogre’s son got there first, and reached a hairy arm across the divide to grab her shoulder. She wasted a moment reaching for a sword that wasn’t there but recovered quickly. Before his meaty fingers closed around her arm, she shoved herself off the wall to gain extra momentum and collided with him hard enough to knock him off balance. He seemed startled at her speed, a mistake he would only make once. Her arm snapped back and then forward, connecting painfully with his nose. She could hear the crack over his strangled cry, and he fell to his knees, down for the count.

The twins had held back, and hesitated after seeing their friend hit the ground.

“Get her!” Alrith barked, and the twins snapped out of it. They spread out, trying to flank her. She grit her teeth, already feeling exhausted from one punch. She wasn’t as healed as she had thought. The tattooed one put his hands up, like a proper fighter. She wasn’t a bad brawler, but she was much more comfortable with a sword. This likely wouldn’t be an easy or fast fight. He jabbed at her stomach, and she took a step back out of reflex, forgetting the burned brother. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and she aimed a kick behind her. She felt it connect, and the hand shook loose, but she hadn’t been able to kick hard enough to hurt. Another fist came flying at her abdomen from the tattooed one. She neatly dodged it, and caught his upper arm. She was tensing up to drive her fist into his teeth, when a booted foot hit her square in the back. She was knocked off her feet, into the tattooed brother, who spun her around and twisted her arm painfully behind her back. She cried out, mostly from surprise. She hung loose in the grip for a moment, sucking air into her mouth, before slamming her head back into the bastard’s face. No satisfying crack, but she felt the click of teeth against her head and knew she’d gotten him painfully in the mouth. He didn’t let go of her arm completely, but enough for her to break his grip. She turned to face the burned one, arms up and ready. Before she could fully turn, something hard collided with the back of her head, and she hit the ground. Hard.

Her vision winked in and out while she struggled to maintain consciousness. She barely felt someone drag her roughly to her feet and tie her hands together in front of her. Her vision returned dully as her body decided it was being dramatic and not going to pass out after all.

She was being supported by the burned twin, the only one in the room aside from Alrith not clutching a bleeding face. Her head stopped buzzing by the time they pulled her from the room.

She was in a hallway, being roughly dragged along, but she took it for the opportunity it was. The whole cave system was larger than she had thought. Judging by some old rotted barrels pushed into the corner at the end of the hallway near her door, the caves used to be some old smuggler hideaway. There was one other cell next to hers, but the door was left open carelessly. Her eyes tried to scan further down the hallway, but it was too dark. One of the brothers aimed a kick at her leg, and she stumbled before catching herself.

A little further down the hallway from her cell, she glanced up at the ceiling. The ceiling was maybe eight feet high, but lower or higher in some places. There was a length of sagging wood stretched about four feet. She looked down at the ground and kicked a dirt clod that seemed to have fallen. She hid her smirk, and tried to forget there was a meaty hand clenched down on her shoulder.

The hallway opened up into another room, larger. The first thing Hawke noticed was that there was no door, meaning the entrance—and therefore exit—was in a different part of the caves. The second thing she noticed was a table caked in flaking blood, with thick leather arm and leg restraints woven through.

She took in the room—it wasn’t large, but decently large for a cave, in her minimal experience of caves. It was largely unadorned, aside from two chairs shoved against one wall, and bookshelf against another, filled with mostly damp, rotted books and a few newer looking ones. But mostly, she looked at the table.

“It’s where we saved you from bleeding internally. Be grateful.” Alrith commented from behind her, tracking her gaze.

She said nothing, but considered lunging at him and trying to break his fucking nose.

“Strap her down.” He ordered coolly.

Hawke was forced down onto the table, her legs quickly secured to the table with the leg straps. She managed to slam her elbow into the tattooed brother’s groin before his brother and the first thug managed to slam her head hard enough into the table that she saw stars. She felt them untie her hands and strap them into the hand restraints.

“Bastard.” She spat at Alrith, ignoring the groaning of the man she’d just tried to neuter.

He smiled sincerely for the first time she’d seen. “Leave.” He said to the others. She didn’t take her eyes off his as she listened to their shuffling to another part of the cave system.

Alrith walked away suddenly, heading towards the chairs against the wall. He gripped the back of one, swinging it around and dragging it noisily across the room to her side. He wiped away dust that had accumulated on its seat—probably a regular hazard of living in a cave on the ass side of the Wounded Coast—and sat delicately on it.

“Oh, wonderful.” She commented dryly, and blew away some of hair that had settled across her face. “I was wondering when the cut scene was going to begin.”

“When I got the news that my sister had died,” he started, not acknowledging her in the slightest, “when I found out you had _killed_ her, my first reaction was to hunt you down in your manor, paid for with the blood money you earn destroying the lives of people you think of as beneath you, the ones that suffer under the Qunari and your fucking Viscount.” He paused, pulling out the sword at his side. It looked identical to the darkspawn-looking sword that Fenris now wore across his back. “I was going to stick this in your throat and watch you choke on it.” He said, almost thoughtfully. He was silent for a moment, watching the lantern’s waving light reflected in the gleam of blade. Then he sighed, and sheathed the sword again. “But then I realized I was acting rashly. I realized the best way to honor my sister’s memory was to finish the work she started. And you’re going to help me.”

Hawke, having tested the restraints and found no weakness, had relaxed back on the table. “You expect me to help lead your coup against the Qunari? Just charge on in their compound and kill them all for you? I know you’ve heard some pretty impressive stories about me, but I can assure you—“

“I don’t _expect_ anything from _you._ You are nothing but dirt beneath my shoes. You live in luxury and let my people live in squalor in your city. They suffer in your diseased alienages, and live alongside even your own people in the sewers of your city. I don’t _expect_ you _shemlen_ to do anything other than wait around until the Qunari finally murder and enslave all of you. By the time you realize we were right, it will all be too late for you.”

“So far your plan to liberate the city from the Qunari ended with both elves and humans choking to death on gas with swords in their hands and in their guts.” Hawke snapped, but a cloud of shame lingered as she pictured the filth and destitution of Kirkwall’s alienage and Dark Town.

“Ah, I’m glad you brought that up.” Alrith replied. He stood, and crossed the room to the opening the three goons had exited earlier. “Taedis!” He barked, his voice echoing through the hall, “Bring it in.”

There was no sound or movement for a few moments, but soon Hawke heard the sounds of two sets of feet approaching. It was difficult to see from the angle she was strapped down, but she saw an elf and human emerge from the shadows, carrying a large barrel between them, with a smaller metal box balanced precariously on top. They set the load down and backed away. They took positions against the wall, watching.

Alrith gingerly took the box and set it down on his chair, and then returned to the barrel. “Recognize it?”

Hawke remained silent, glaring.

“Saar-qamak. You remember? Poison gas. The Qunari use qamak to create mindless slaves—Viddath-bas, they call them, once their spirits are broken and they can’t even remember their own names.”

In her mind’s eye, Hawke was back in the courtyard where her confrontation with Alrith’s sister had occurred. Hawke saw her hands slamming saar-qamak barrel lids shut and holding her breath as long as she could while Fenris helped seal them shut with steel latches. She could feel the gas entering her lungs, and could almost hear Varric and Merrill keeping the fighters off her and Fenris as they struggled with the barrels. She’d been sick for days following the ordeal—they all had. Saar-qamak was lethal if too much was inhaled.

“We recovered some of the barrels following the fight. We’ve had time to study it now, tweak it a little. It may not have been what we wanted to accomplish our goals, but I’m not one turn my nose up at an opportunity.”

“You’re going to try this again?” Hawke asked, shocked. “Didn’t you learn your lesson? We stopped you. The Qunari weren’t blamed, it was you and fucking group of fanatics.”

Alrith patted the barrel almost lovingly. “Yes, we have your viscount to thank for covering up that little mess for us. I suppose he didn’t want anyone to know that our people were living among you, ready for the next move. If we redeploy saar-qamak in the city, people would of course suspect the Qunari. But that’s not our plan. We need to make a bolder move. Think bigger.” He looked up at her, and his head tilted like a child. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself.”

Hawke blinked, not expecting the change in topic.

“Everyone in Kirkwall has heard of you and your dwarven friends’ expedition, a true rags to riches tale. They’ve heard the stories of how you aid the guard captain in valiantly slaying all the gangs and thieves that wander the streets at night. They know how you’ve helped elves in the alienage, and the destitute in Dark Town. They hear the name _Hawke_ and they think _hero._ So we’re going to kill you.” He shrugged, “Not immediately. Not even for a few days. Hawke, let me ask you something: how did inhaling saar-qamak feel? Did you feel sick? Weak? Did you feel crazy? Murdering everything in sight? See, here’s the thing.” He leaned in close to her face. “We’re going to pump this into your lungs, let you loose in Kirkwall, and then let you kill everything in sight until you eventually drop dead from the poison. The viscount won’t be able to cover it up—Hawke the hero, now rabid and dead, poisoned by a gas only Qunari have access to? Kirkwall will just _love_ that. We even have a betting pool on how many of your citizens you’ll slaughter before you die. Some of them don’t think you’ll be able to slice through more than ten before you’re overcome. But I know you, Hawke.” His voice was light, but his eyes were burning anger and unchecked fury. He leaned in closer still. “I _know_ you. I think you’ll manage to massacre many more than that.” He took a step back, and turned towards the chair.

“Sounds like you got it all figured out.” Hawke said, trying to keep her voice calm. “No one is going to believe it’s the Qunari.” She lied. “My friends were there that night. The viscount knows. Sure, you can kill me. But you plan isn’t going to work. Your sister died accomplishing nothing, and you will too.”

Alrith turned slowly, his face expressionless. Then his arm rocked back and his fist collided painfully into her left cheek. She saw it coming, but strapped down as she was, couldn’t avoid it. The dull smack on skin on skin echoed in the chamber, and Hawke worked her jaw for a moment. She tasted blood in her mouth from a cut in her check, and spat out a glob of blood, watching it land satisfactorily on the hem of his shirt. She smiled, feeling blood in the grooves of her teeth. She hoped she looked terrifying. Crazy, even. “I want to join your betting pool. Ten sovereigns that the only people slaughtered at the end of this are you and your fanatics. I’ll throw an extra five if the first thing I sink my blade into is your throat.”

Alrith’s face remained devoid of expression before cracking into a genuine smile. “I’m going to enjoy this more that you’ll ever know.” He turned back to the box on the chair. He flipped the latches keeping it locked but didn’t open it. “As I’ve said, we’ve tweaked the formula, but we’ve been lacking test subjects. Willing ones, anyway. We have to make sure the gas isn’t strong enough to kill you immediately. Think of it this way: I’m buying you time.” He smiled again. “Taedis? Mark this down as test number one.”

Hawke spared a glance at the two in the corner, watched as the elf pulled a roll of vellum out of his pocket. Her heart rate sped up as she turned back towards Alrith. He had pulled up a fold of his scarf around his nose and mouth, but she could see from the creases around his eyes that he was smiling beneath the heavy material. He flipped the box open, and instantly she could smell fumes.  Alrith reached in and pulled a rag, presumably soaked with the damn saar-qamak. Without ceremony the rag descended and was pressed roughly against her face. Hawke tried to roll her head away, but Alrith kept his grip firm.

She held her breath as long as she was able, staring murderously into his eyes, before she took a breath. It was concentrated, not at all like the diluted barrels back in Kirkwall. It burned cold down to her lungs and her throat seized. She coughed, inhaling more of the foul gas. Her finger tips and toes felt numb, and her head fogged over. She was aware of nothing but gut-wrenching cramps and nausea. She felt her heart beat faster and faster until the lethargy of the fog in her head suddenly gave way to a searing white explosion of bloodlust. Her eyes found Alrith, and he lept back, pulling the rag away with him. Her hands curled into tight fists, her nails cutting into her skin. She watched him, and was overcome with the need to rip his heart out with her bare hands, to take his sword and sink it into him over and over and over and over. She lunged at him, fighting the restraints. She felt the leather biting into her skin, but she didn’t feel pain, didn’t feel anything but the insatiable need to dismember the unnamed man in front of her. Another cramp tore through her and she felt her body buck. She continued to pull against the restraints. Then as sudden as the last, a body-wrenching cramp and wave of pain tore through her body. She felt sick, but nothing in her mind could formulate the proper words or feelings to accompany it. She strained against the leather, but felt her body drain of all energy. The room seemed to turn white with fog, and then she fell into black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry for the late-ish upload. I was playing Overwatch and I forgot I hadn't posted it in the morning. Thanks for reading <3


	5. Chapter 5

Hawke woke to the worst hangover of her life.

Even her expensive sheets and comfortable mattress felt painful against her skin. She rolled onto her side, and pulled her knees up to her chest. _Andraste’s plump bosom, how much did I drink?_

She didn’t open her eyes, preferring to pretend that the darkness of her eyelids was actually the sweet embrace of death, and that she could avoid the hangover entirely by simply dying.

She sent up a wordless groan of gratitude to the Maker that Mal hadn’t decided to sleep sprawled across her face. The groan cut off halfway. Mal _always_ decided to sleep sprawled across her face.

Her eyes cracked open. A blurry cell came into view, and the last few days flooded back like a bucket of ice water. She shut her eyes once more, steeling herself for the shift to an upright position. With more than a little effort, she managed to sit up against the wall. Her head was still hazy, and she tried to piece back together the important parts. She remembered fighting the thugs in her cell, being dragged to a table… talking with Alrith. Oh, right, she’d finally heard his monologue. “Shit.” She hissed, her mind’s eye seeing a white cloth descending to her face. Fumes entering her lungs.

The room smelled horrible. There was drying vomit around her pallet—though thankfully her already disgusting pallet remained sick-free. She glanced down at her wrists and winced. They had been rubbed raw and though the bleeding had stopped, the scabs told her everything she needed to know about what had happened last night.

“Fuck.” She cursed again, if only to say something.

A shiver wracked her body. _Still working that shit out of my system_. She felt miserable. And more than a little annoyed that she was having the worst hangover of her life without any of the fun night-before-drinking-part.

She glanced distastefully at the vomit again, before forcing herself to rise and walk the three steps over to the pitcher of water that had been topped off on her small table. She gulped down nearly half. The water hit her empty stomach and a low hunger gurgle sounded in the room. There was no food, but just thinking about eating flipped her stomach upside down. She dropped the pitcher back to the table with a careless thud, and eased herself back down to the pallet.

Now what?

The cave system wasn’t deep. She knew that from her walk through the hallway, from the dirt she’d seen fallen from the ceiling. She knew there was at least one entrance, and Alrith had a key. She wasn’t sure about the numbers of the group. So far she’d seen the few mages that had healed her up, Alrith, Thom, the two brothers and ogre, the two that had been in the room last night when she’d…

It was bad odds. But she had nothing to lose.

A dull cramp throbbed painfully in her abdomen, and a wave of nausea crested. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cool stone. She must have dozed, because she woke what felt like moments later when her door jerked open.

Thom was shoved roughly into the room, and the door slammed shut again, and she heard the scrape of a key turning.

“Hullo, Thom.” She said, aiming for cheerful but sounding tired.

"Hullo.” He said, not looking at her.

Hawke studied him for a moment. Thom looked scared.

“I heard what they did to you.” He said quietly.

Hawke let out a slow breath, and run a hand through her knotted hair. The action pulled at her scabs and she winced. “What did you bring me this time?” She said instead, nodding at the bundle in his hand.

Thom finally looked at her before he dropped his gaze to the wrapped bundle in his hand, as if he’d forgotten he’d been carrying it. He crossed the room and handed it over. She took it gingerly, and unwrapped it. Another hunk of bread, some cheese that had mold on at least half of it, and a small red vial. She set the food to the side, still not sure her stomach could handle it. She uncorked the vial and downed it in one gulp.

Thom watched her apprehensively. “What was that?”

Hawke smacked her lips, holding the vial up, letting the small puddle of red catch the light of her lantern. “Healing potion. Small one.” She took a breath, feeling the potion’s effects. It was a fraction of a dose, not enough to heal her scraped wrists or completely rid her body of the sickness, but she felt some of the soreness lighten and felt well enough to force down some of her magnificent feast.

Thom eyed the vial uneasily. “Why would they try to heal you? Aren’t they trying to kill you?”

Hawke held out the vial, and he took it in his small hand. He inspected the contents with a frown.

“It’s more complicated than that. Guess I’m special enough to keep around.” She winked. He still looked unconvinced. “Don’t worry, Thom.” She reached over and tousled his hair, like a proper big sister. “I’ll get us out of here. It’s a promise. I’m awful good at keeping those.”

Thom finally offered up a small smile. It quickly slid off his face as a loud knocking sounded on the door. “I hafta go.” He said, and hurried to the door. He paused and looked back at her. She smiled, and he tried to smile back. He knocked once, his small fist hardly making a sound.

“Back against the wall, bitch.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She called back loftily, mainly for Thom’s benefit. “That all they let you say?”

The door opened and a hand roughly pulled Thom out of the room by his raggedy collar, and the door shut behind him. She heard the locking mechanism and sighed. She had to come up with something.

She’d finished the measly food and used her charming excrement bucket when Alrith graced her slum with his presence.

“Welcome.” She greeted. He glanced at the vomit and then at her distastefully. “Please,” She gestured grandly around her cell, “take a seat wherever you please.”

“Funny.” He said dryly. “We’ll see how long you hang onto that sense of humor.”

Hawke shook her head sadly. “You’re not the first to tell me that, I’m afraid.”

His mouth curled in a cruel smile. “Fortunately, I’ll be the last.” He banged his fist once on the door, and her favorite set of twins entered. “Take her.”

 

Strapped down to the table for a second time, Hawke tried to calm down her wildly beating heart.

Alrith was posted at her side, the dreaded metal box on his chair once again. Hawke stared at it for a while, before finally tearing her gaze away. She stared straight at the dark, uneven ceiling. She said nothing.

“Last dosage was too much, but I think you knew that already. Tell me Hawke, how _were_ you feeling when you woke up this morning? For a few hours, I wondered if you actually were going to wake up.”

She finally looked up at the elf. “Alrith, you were worried about me? That’s sweet. I don’t normally consort with psychopath bastards, but it’ll make me that much sadder when I separate your head from your body.”

Alrith chuckled, sounding genuinely amused. “Let’s hope your body has as much spirit as your mind. We have as much time as we need to finally crack the right balance of formula. Yesterday was quite fun. Very educational.”

“I enjoy our time together.” Hawke said sweetly. Alrith smirked, and reached a hand over to the metal box. Hawke flinched involuntarily, and Alrith’s smile broadened.

“Not as much as I do. We have weeks, Hawke. Just think of the fun we can have.”

He pulled his scarf up, and flipped open the lid. “Taedis? Mark test number two.”

* * *

“Fenris, look out!”

Fenris ducked instinctively, his hand already angling for the sword strung across his back. His head whipped around towards the room and he saw Varric smirking. Fenris scowled and turned back towards the window. “Ass.”

Varric chuckled, and Fenris wondered how the dwarf was able to keep his good humor considering The Circumstances. He heard the dwarf draw up beside him on the balcony and pointedly ignored him.

Together they stared out over a darkening High Town. The sun was going down, marking exactly a week and four days since their friend had gone missing.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Varric started, and Fenris could feel a lengthy tangent coming, “my digs at the Hanged Man are what little boy dwarves dream of one day calling home. But you can’t beat the view from Hawke’s balcony.”

It _was_ a good view, Fenris reflected. He wasn’t completely sure why he kept coming back here, to Hawke’s home. Bodhan and Orana never seemed to mind his presence, but he still felt as if he was an intruder in Hawke’s personal space. But she never minded guests. If she was in the mood for company and couldn’t convince one of her crew to come over, he was almost positive Hawke would drag in some stranger off the street.

Nostalgia made him speak. “It feels a lot longer than a week and a half.” The words came out flat, with only a whisper of the vulnerability that he felt.

Beside him, Varric was silent. Fenris glanced at his friend out of the corner of his eye. Varric’s chummy disposition had cracked slightly, and Fenris saw the same worry and exhaustion that the rest of them felt. For all his jokes and pep talks, Hawke was Varric’s best friend, and he missed her as much as they all did. “Talked to Anders on the way over here. He and Merrill were looking into locator spells. They tried a few, but they either didn’t work or she’s out of range of their reach.”

Fenris’ hands tightened on the balcony ledge and he looked away again, back to the street. He watched a pair of guards turn up the corner, heading back to the barracks for a shift change. Otherwise the street was silent. “She could be anywhere now, Varric. Anders said he had no way of telling where the summoning spell was cast from.” He smacked the ledge hard with his palm. “We don’t even know that she’s alive.” His chest wrenched at the thought. Hawke was his friend. The first friend he’d made in all of his fucked up, fractured memory.

Varric was uncharacteristically silent. Fenris turned to look at the rogue, and met Varric’s thoughtful expression. Varric offered a sincere half-smile, and turned back to Hawke’s bedroom.

He chuckled to himself, and finally spoke. “Cheer up, Broody. I’m sure Hawke is fine. She’s probably out there living the high life, pestering her captors for fine dining choices, and telling them all about how she’s the best looking gal in all of Kirkwall.”

* * *

If Hawke hadn’t been the best looking gal in all of Kirkwall, she probably would have drowned herself in her shit bucket.

She had no idea how long she’d been down in this Maker-forsaken cave. She couldn’t even keep track of how many times she’d been poisoned with that fucking saar-qamak gas. She shivered on her pallet, not bothering with the blanket’s meager warmth.

Some times were worse than others. It seemed like they were trying to find a balance between too much and too little. The just-right amount. The set-her-loose-and-let-her-slaughter-everyone amount.

This was the first time she’d felt fully lucid in what must have been days, if not weeks.

All she could remember from the time was smoke, rage, sickness and dreams. Snippets came back to her if she could be bothered to concentrate. Healing potions being forced down her throat, small hands worriedly pushing hair out of her face and the feeling of falling out of herself every time the saar-qamak was in her system.

But now they had something new in store for her. She had lain sick and unmoving on her pallet for at least a day. She greedily stored every ounce of strength that had returned in that time. And as her strength returned, so did her fury.

She wondered if this meant that it was time, if they had finally found whatever combination of gas they had been testing for. Maybe they were getting her back into full fighting strength only to have her be in top shape for the massacre.

Her borrowed shift was stiff with dried sweat and cave dirt. Her wrists were in a constant state of half-healed, barely having time to scab over before she was forced into the restraints again.

She cracked a bleary eye open, and zeroed in on the water pitcher that sat tauntingly on her table. With a great deal of cursing, she managed to crawl over to the table. She sat next to it with her back against the wall and let her stomach calm before reaching over and gulping down the entire pitcher in one go.

She felt a little refreshed, less nauseous. She balanced the pitcher precariously on her knee for a moment. Sighing, she set it down next to her and placed a hand on the table to help her stand.

The moment her full weight pressed down on the table, one of the table legs broke off, knocking the whole table—and one alarmed Hawke—to the ground. Lying on the cold cave ground, she was unhurt but pissed. Her bad luck just never seemed to go away.

She lay on the ground for a few moments before finally pushing herself to her feet. She wobbled once, but then straightened and stayed steady. She stood proudly, a smile of accomplishment brushing off some of the dust that had settled on the ol’ Hawke ego. She took in the empty room, and then wondered why she was even standing.

In the silence, it was easy to pick up the sound of footsteps echoing in the hallway. She heard a voice ask something, and then the guard at her door answered “I don’t know, probably acrobatics or something. What do I know? Just go tell him that she’s awake. And breaking things.”

She had to tell Varric to use that title for his next tale about her: _Awake and Breaking Things_.

A response she couldn’t quite catch, and the sound of feet retreating back down the hallway. Maybe they were bringing her food. She’d have to ask about some fine dining options—bread and carrots were simply getting old. Not that she’d been able to eat in the last few days. But it was just nice to have _options._

Her legs grew shaky and she settled back against the wall. Maker, she wished she knew how long she’d been here. She wished she knew how her friends were and what they were doing. What would they think when they finally found her, dead from saar-qamak and surrounded by corpses? She frowned at the door, irritated with herself for seeming ready to give up. She was _Hawke._ Hawkes never gave up.

She idly rubbed her stomach as a small cramp rippled through her. Painful, but nowhere near as bad as how she’d been feeling the last few days.

She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She sat there, just breathing, ignoring the sickness in her stomach and the soreness in her limbs.

Eventually she heard two sets of footsteps headed towards her cell and her eyes opened blearily. Food? More fun torture sessions?

“Already?” asked the guard.

“Alrith’s orders. Says with any luck it’ll be the final test.”

A chuckle. “That or she dies.”

“Hopefully _she_ won’t be the one who dies. You said she was awake?”

“Was as of a few minutes ago. I don’t go in there. Alrith’s orders.”

She heard a brief scuffling of small feet and a small cry as someone was slapped. Thom? Her hands curled into weak fists.

“Alright, do it.”

Hawke put a hand behind her on the wall to brace herself. Before she was fully standing, the door opened maybe a foot, and something small and brown was tossed in before the door shut quickly again.

Hawke stared unblinking and confused at the small rounded barrel. Maybe a foot long, it rolled to a stop against the ruins of her table. There was a second of silence before Hawke’s sick realization. “Maker’s—“ She started, before the top of the barrel popped open on some kind of spring and saar-qamak started to pour into the room.

She scrambled backwards to the far end of the room, holding a dirty sleeve up to her mouth and nose. It didn’t take long for the gas to fill the room, and despite her attempts to breath shallow and slow, Hawke could feel the effects of the poison.

She started coughing and felt the familiar feeling of rage and blankness. She slid down the wall slowly, coughing and feeling more of the gas fill her lungs. _Concentrate, damn it,_ she screamed in her mind. _Don’t leave!_

Her vision dimmed even as she felt her muscles fill with adrenaline-fueled strength. Her heart beat so fast it felt like it would explode. She grit her teeth, trying to hold back the usual blank whiteness that took over. _Hold on hold on hold on hold on,_ she chanted in her mind. If anything was worse than the sickness and pain of the gas, it was the feeling of losing herself, of forgetting even her name in the smoke that clogged her mind.

Her coughing worsened and she took another step to the side. Her left foot connected with her piss bucket, and she heard it skid a few inches.

Suddenly, an idea.

Still gagging on the foul saar-qamak, she reached for the bucket. She dumped its contents unceremoniously and raced her decaying mind as she ran towards the barrel. She flipped the bucket upside down and slammed it down over the barrel. It barely fit, but it sealed the barrel—and the gas—in the bucket. For now.

Keeping her weight on the bucket, she gulped in tainted air. Her body shook with unrestrained adrenaline, and her mind fogged over with red rage. But still, she held on for all she was worth. It must not have been as strong of a dose as they meant, or she would already be throwing all of her weight against the door in an attempt to claw the eyes out of the guards.

“That should be enough.” She heard one of them say, voice muffled through the door and the pounding in her head. “Throw him in.”

A chuckle. “Sorry, kid.”

She heard a brief struggle, some pained grunts, and finally the scrape of the door opening. Thom was thrust into the room, looking terrified. There was a scarf tied around his face, ostensibly to keep the gas from infecting him. A remnant of remained of Hawke’s sarcasm rolled her eyes at the thought process of keeping Thom from breathing in the gas while sending him into a room to be torn apart by a manwoman.

He took one look at her, and turned to bang on the door. “Let me out!” He screamed, his young voice cracking. “ _Please_!” He begged.

The guards laughed on the other side of the door, and Thom turned back to her. She felt her mind slip, and her entire body tensed with the desire to rip Thom in half. She smothered down that feeling, and felt a small wisp of sanity return as the gas was successfully plugged.

“Try and out run her!” Encouraged one of the guards.

Hawke felt sick, but not like she was losing control anymore. She thought quickly, eyes darting around the room.

Her eyes alit on the pitcher she’d earlier discarded, as well as the broken table leg. Good enough for now.

“Thom, come here.” She hissed. The boy’s eyes widened at her lucidity. There was a brief hesitation, but he glanced down at the bucket she was holding and put two and two together. _Smart boy,_ she thought with pride.

He approached her, and stopped just out of her reach.

“Listen,” she whispered, “I have a plan. I need you to tell them I’ve collapsed or something. Anything to get them to unlock that door, got it?”

He stared uncomprehending at her for a moment. A banging on the door startled him, and he half turned. “I’m not hearing any screaming.” One guard said to his companion.

Thom looked back into her eyes, and nodded. “Jakob!” He yelled, and ran to the door, pounding on it. “Jakob, she collapsed! I… I don’t think  she’s breathing.” The real terror the small boy felt added a genuine quaver in his voice, and Hawke immediately knew her plan would work.

“Shit.” One of the cursed, and then she could hear the rattle of keys. Hawke took her hands off the bucket, satisfied it would hold long enough. Her arms shook as she quickly scooped up the pitcher and table leg and ran to Thom’s side at the door. The gas had briefly deadened her pain and she felt strong and deadly for the first time in days.

Hawke hid behind the door as it opened, and the first guard stepped in, oblivious. “What the—“ He started, seeing the room sans Hawke. He began to turn, but Hawke slammed the pitcher against the back of his head with all the force her drugged up muscles could muster. The guard hit the ground with a sick thud. She paused stared dispassionately down at him. Her mind wavered for a moment, and her hands tightened on the table leg. Her vision tunneled while she felt an overwhelming need to bash his head head in over and over and over and over—

“Help!” She heard the next guard yell down the hallway. _Shit,_ she thought, snapping out of her reverie and quickly ducking around the door. She hefted the table leg up in her hand and swept the guard’s legs out from under him. He handed with a yell and a crash, and she raised the table leg over her head. Her mind slipped again, and she was a nameless form. Just a force of fury and power. She slammed the table leg down into the screaming man’s face, and the scream choked off with his unconsciousness. She hit him in the head again, and then reared back up with the leg clenched tight in both hands. She threw her entire weight into the downward swing and stabbed him through the heart.

Her hands were slick with the guard’s blood, and she let go of the leg. It remained upright, like a pin through a butterfly. Like a table leg through a goddamn fucking body, like a—

“Hawke?” came a frightened voice behind her.

She turned slowly, her breath ragged. There was another small form, another thing to bloody, another body to tear into—

_Thom._

Hawke’s mind came flooding back from wherever it had pissed off to, and she turned back to the dead guard before looking back at Thom.

Thom saw the change and edged carefully out of the room into the hallway. He looked scared, and his face paled as he saw the wooden shaft imbedded in the guard.

“I’m sorry, Thom.” She heard herself say, but she wasn’t sure why she was apologizing or why she was shaking so viciously.

He didn’t say anything as she turned back to the guard. Her slick hands pulled roughly on the table leg, and she was able to pull it out with one sickening plop.

“Come on.” She said gruffly. Weariness was settling in her bones but she was determined to at least get Thom out of the caves before she collapsed.

She limped down the hallway, hearing scuffling and yelling at a distance. Unfortunately there was no place to go except towards the sounds. There was no exit except for the front door, she’d just have to fight her way through—

Hawke’s foot came down on something damp and disgusting, and she stopped. She looked uncomprehendingly at her feet for a moment. Dirt squished between her toes and she looked up at the ceiling. For the first time in a long time, she smiled.

“Stand back for a moment, Thom.” She said to the boy. The words didn’t need to be said—Thom was already keeping his distance.

The rotting wooden boards sagged towards her from the ceiling, where Alrith’s crew presumably had attempted to plug a gaping hole into the cave system. She hefted the table leg, already feeling exhaustion and weariness setting in. She raised her arms and slammed the leg into the boards once, twice, three times before there was any give. One board tumbled down and within seconds, Hawke had a good sized hold in the ceiling.

And without a moment to spare. Alrith’s men had finally gathered their weapons and were headed down the hallway. She held out a hand to Thom, dropping the table leg.

“Thom,” she said quickly, “I’m going to give you a boost out of the ceiling. Lay low as long as you think you need to. As soon as it’s clear, I need you to get to Kirkwall as fast as you can. Then run to the barracks and tell the guard captain everything. Okay, Thom? _Everything._ ”

The boy nodded quickly, and scampered over. _Good kid,_ she thought with pride. She took the small body in her arms. She was thankful he was light—in a few minutes she wasn’t even sure she could hold herself up anymore. She lifted him as high as she could, and felt his weight lessen as he took hold of the remaining boards and hauled himself topside.

Hawke glanced down the hallway, seeing Alrith’s crew approaching, and then looked back up. Thom’s small face filled the opening, looking guilty and terrified. She smiled at him and winked. She looked back at the men, and when she looked back up, Thom’s face was gone.

The first guard reached her, blade unsheathed and pointed at her throat. The rest quickly filled the hallway behind her. Alrith pushed his way to the front, his sword out and angled towards the ground. His eyes darted at the opening in the ceiling, to the bloodied table leg at her feet, to the corpse behind her slowly draining of all its blood.

He looked back at Hawke, and she laughed. She laughed and laughed until he raised the hilt of his sword and bashed in her in the side of the head. She barely felt the blow before darkness swept in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure I was gonna keep that Fenris POV in there. Seemed kind of jarring to switch POVs suddenly, but eh. I missed those guys.
> 
> phew, we're almost there guys. Two chapters left!


	6. Chapter 6

This time, they didn’t leave her food or water.

They had pounded a heavy metal bracket into the wall while she had been unconscious, and she woke up with her hands fastened together in front of her, with a short stretch of chain connecting her to the wall.

She could literally not care less about the chains. Her entire body was sick with worry about Thom. Had she sent the boy to his death? All she could see was the death of Carver and the darkspawn poisoning of Bethany over and over in her head. People around her ended up dying and dead. And she sent a child out into the Wounded Coast just to rescue herself. Disgusting behavior, really.

Something was different this time. Even if Thom successfully made it back to Kirkwall, she had a hard time seeing any ending with her alive. Hawke felt closer to the end. Whatever that meant.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She didn’t try and get up from the pallet. She didn’t jostle the chains. Her body hurt and she felt sick and her head was hazy with a concussion. Hopefully just a concussion.

She tried to hold on to hope, but mainly she just was tired. Mainly she just wanted to sleep.

She slept.

 

Two more days, two more rounds of testing. She knew because this time they gave her water once a day.

 

She stared at the refilled water pitcher placed just within reach of her chained hands. Day three. Another poisoning ahead. The small concussion pulsed dully in her head. Honestly she was surprised her body was still functioning. They’d stopped giving her healing draughts. They’d probably give them to her once they were ready to ship her back off to Kirkwall. After all, she didn’t need to be conscious for the healing. She just needed to be conscious for the poisoning.

Hawke considered kicking the water over with her outstretched foot and watching it spread across the cave floor. She could picture the ground darkening, slick like blood.

She considered kicking the water over with her outstretched foot and letting herself die.

Hawke sighed. That wasn’t who she was. She gingerly stretched her chained arm out and snagged the pitcher handle. She took a few sips and set the rest aside for later.

Maker’s breath, she hoped Thom had made it out alive. If not for her sake, then for his. She hadn’t heard what happened to him one way or the other, and tried to take that as a good sign. He was small and used to hard living—they probably hadn’t found him. Now the scrawny sack of rags just had to make it back to Kirkwall in once piece.

So, day three.

The lantern was set on the floor in the far corner of the room, out of reach. They hadn’t replaced the table, just dragged the broken pieces into the hallway.

She idly tugged a strand of her hair. Before the chains had been clapped on her wrists, she had tried keeping it semi-presentable combing it out with her fingers. Not for any special reason. But it gave her something to do. Bethany used to comb her hair when they were younger. Hawke acted like she was doing it for her sister’s benefit, but she found her sister’s hands toying with her hair relaxing. Now that she was separated from her siblings—in one way or another—it was funny what reminded her of them.

The lantern sputtered for a moment, and then winked out. She sat in perfect darkness. She considered calling out for more lantern oil. But she decided to sleep instead.

* * *

 

The thuggish twins were already freeing her wrists from the chains before she was fully awake. She blinked sluggishly, waking up from a dream about mineshafts and dragons.

They hefted her to her feet, and she didn’t even try to fight them as they dragged her from the room. It wasn’t like this was new. They swept down the hallway, looking all the world like three friends stumbling home drunk.

She wasn’t in the mood for talking, but appearances, appearances. She looked over at the burned one, “Have I ever told you that you look _exactly_ like this one corpse in my friend’s manor? Like you could be _twins._ ” She continued babbling as they roughly strapped her down onto the table. “Or triplets, I suppose. Are you missing a brother? One burned, one tattooed—what does your other brother do? Just rub some dirt on his face and call it a day?”

She heard another pair of footsteps enter.

“What do you think, Alrith?” She asked, not looking up at the elf. “I could do a matching tattoo on your face. I don’t have practice, but I could probably _just_ about fit my name across your forehead.”

She turned to look at him finally. He had skipped their usual passing banter before their daily torture sessions—sorry, _testing_ sessions _—_ the days since she’d helped Thom escape. Whether that was because he was furious, or perhaps had really valued that special bond of trust that Hawke and Alrith had built over the time they’d spent together, she couldn’t know.

He remained silent, and she sighed. Well, if they didn’t have their friendship, they didn’t have anything.

Alrith settled in his chair, and pulled a single piece of vellum from his shirt pocket. His sword clinked against the ground and he winced at the sound. He must be over protective of his sword—his last connection to his dead sister.

He looked over the paper in silence for a moment before returning it to the pocket and giving it a satisfying pat. He finally looked at Hawke. “Looks like this is the last test, Hawke.”

“Oh, good.” She replied, “Got any more children you’d like to sic me on?”

He chuckled, and the return of his good humor didn’t make her feel any better. “I won’t make that mistake again. We’d hoped the tests had progressed well enough that you would kill him in your cell. I suppose it doesn’t matter that we killed him right outside of Kirkwall.”

She went very still.

He studied her face passively. Then some humor brightened his face. “You didn’t really think that we’d lose a _child_ , did you? Of course we found him. Didn’t even fight back.” He shrugged. “Much.”

So she’d killed Thom.

She felt a wave of pain colored with anger crash over her.

Alrith studied her for another moment. “But this little project has gone on long enough, and I’m getting tired of it. At this point, I couldn’t care if you die right here, on this table, or if you die bloody in Kirkwall. I just want it to _end._ ”

She swallowed back the fear she didn’t want him to see. “Then do it.” She said, and turned her gaze away, towards the cave ceiling.

“Greaves, bring it over.”

Hawke turned her head to the other side of the room and watched the man bring over the sealed box. Alrith always had it brought in last minute, as if he didn’t want to be near the stuff. She could relate.

Greaves brought the box over, and stood with the other four guards at the only other entrance of the room other than her own cell hallway. Alrith wasn’t taking chances anymore. Six of them, including Alrith, and she was strapped to a table.

She had planned on avoiding his eyes, but when Alrith pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose, Hawke caught his gaze.

He looked relieved.

The box opened, revealing the soaked cloth. Even at an arm’s length, Hawke gagged. She’d vomited at this point before, but today she had nothing in her stomach except contempt and steel.

He held the cloth lovingly in his hand for a moment, and not breaking eye contact, lowered it against her face.

Hawke bucked, trying to move her face away. But that was all reflex—she’d never been able to escape the fumes before. Saar-qamak burned her lungs and throat and she coughed, sucking in more of the fumes. This dose was stronger than the last few—much stronger than the one in her cell that she’d managed to control using sheer force of will.

Feeling it infect her, she wondered if this was the one she wouldn’t come back from.

Adrenaline and drugged strength bloomed in her muscles, and sapped her thoughts. She tugged uselessly against the restraints and felt the dull throb of the wounds opening back up. She yelled out—not a scream, but a cry of frustration and pain.

Animal rage bubbled from the surface and her limbs shook with borrowed energy. She forgot what she should be fighting, what she should be resisting, and just wanted to fight it _all._

Her coherent thoughts faded, and were replaced with flashes of color and images of blood and viscera. Before Hawke was completely locked away in some dark corner of her mind, she listened to the roars and groans of an animal before she realized the sounds were coming from her. But Hawke was gone before she realized the implications.

There was a coolness against her face as something was removed, and she heard talking but couldn’t understand the sounds through the roaring of her blood pulsing wildly in her ears. She fought mercilessly, her wrists slick with cracked open scabs, but she only felt only wetness, no pain.

Then something new happened. She was aware of a slight give, of a release. She pressed the advantage and some sane part of her realized that the left arm restraint was loose. The sane part of her knew this was good because the way the restraints were tied together on the underside of the table meant that when one limb got free, the rest would become loose enough to easily slip out of them.

The insane part of her knew this was good because it meant she could finally _finally_ kill everyone in this room.

The blurred form at her side realized too late that she was pulling free of her restraints. Sounds were coming from him, words she didn’t care about, and he was frantically pulling his weapon from his side.

She wanted it.

She was half off the table by the time he had unsheathed it. She was aware of more forms piling into the room, of yelling and stomping, but she wasn’t bothered in the least.

She couldn’t see clearly, but she could see enough. The man’s sword swung towards her head, and her arm snapped out. She felt her fingers close around the blade, stopping it inches from its target. It didn’t hurt. The man’s face came into focus, and she saw fear, and she smiled. He didn’t try to pull the weapon away, and it was a simple thing to lunge at him. She whipped her elbow around and smashed it into the man’s face. A spray of blood coated her arm and the cracking sound echoed in her mind for a moment. She tore the sword away from his grip, and grasped at the handle. The man had fallen backwards, landing on his ass with one hand extended towards her and the other pressed against her face. She raised the sword and smiled again. He died quickly, a sword impaling his throat.

She pulled the sword out with more force than necessary, almost losing the weapon. She didn’t need it. But it felt better to have it. Like she’d used one before.

More forms were in the room, a few more still piling in. A few charged at her, but she cut them down easily. Two died instantly, one had fallen on his back, holding a hand against the bloody hole in his side. She raised the sword again, and neatly separated the head from its body.

She had half turned towards the rest of the men when something imbedded itself in her arm. She glanced down to see the shaft of an arrow protruding from the meat of her shoulder. Blood bubbled fast at the wound with each quick beat of her heart.

She reached up and yanked the arrow out. It came whole and bloody. She discarded it in the throat of the next attacker.

The sword sang in the air as she slashed left and right, and cut and stabbed with abandon. Her arm throbbed and blood from her cut hand and wounded shoulder made it difficult to get a firm grip on the sword.

A tongue of fire seared the air, missing her by inches and singing only the hem of her shirt. She turned from where she was retrieving her sword from the side of a guard and saw the frightened mage. She stared flatly at her for a moment, and then in one smooth motion, launched the sword. It ripped through the mage’s robes like wet vellum, and the mage went down. She went to retrieve the sword. Two others fled down the hallway while she jerked the weapon out of the dying woman’s stomach. Her fist tightened on the hilt and suddenly everything lurched. She saw double for a moment, then saw red. By the time her vision cleared, she was leaning with one hand against the cave wall, staring down at the water and blood she’d vomited at her feet.

She’d have to follow the ones that had escaped. Maybe she’d drag them back here first before she killed them. Maybe she would just kill them while they ran with their backs to her.

But there was still one left in the room. His weapon discarded next to him, he was straightening up from where he’d been checking on one of the corpses. He stared at her, and she felt a predator’s joy in seeing the fear on the face. He took a few steps backward, ignoring his sword, and tripped on an arm she’d earlier separated from a different mage. He landed heavily, and continued to scoot away from her approach. His back hit the wall, and he screamed out some plea that she couldn’t quite understand. His hands came up to protect his face, but didn’t prevent her sword from sliding easily into his chest.

She pulled the sword out, and stumbled back. She hit the table and attempted to straighten, but she felt weaker and felt a fog lifting.

Echoes of footsteps and screams sounded in the hallway, and she tried to stand. She needed to kill the two that escaped. No survivors. No one leaves. She took a step and her body clenched. She gasped, and her knee hit the ground—hard—while her other arm steadied herself on the table.

No sound escaped from her as she forced herself to her feet. She took a few steps towards the hallway. Her need to kill overriding any sense of personal safety. She could drag herself out of there with her hands if her legs stopped working.

The sounds grew louder, and she heard the sound of steel on steel and of men screaming.

She was standing, but her muscles refused to take another step. She could barely make out footsteps over the roaring in her ears. Footsteps coming closer. Finally, she could see a form rushing towards her in the hallway. She raised the sword tip off the ground, feeling and ignoring the burning in her muscles.

The hair registered first.

Her bloody, wet fingers tightened on the hilt in furious need. Her breath dragged out of her in ragged gasps and her body was wound so tight it physically hurt to stand still. She _needed_ the violence, the disgusting, wonderful sound of metal scraping through and past bone, blood, life. But it was the shocking whiteness of his hair that finally stopped her.

She heard her name. She didn’t know what it was, still didn’t know what he said exactly, but in the heartbeat of silence that echoed after it, she knew he said her name.

She squinted at him, fingers so tight on the sword that they might break. Green liquid eyes. She knew them, but she couldn’t drop the sword. It hurt. It hurt and it _hurt._

She was aware of bodies leaking around her. Movement in stillness. Everything flashed red again and for a moment she couldn’t tell blood from not. Surrounded by death and she was so frightfully alive.

 _Am I?_ And it’s the first thought that was actually hers.

Her hands opened automatically and she saw the sword hit the ground, but she couldn’t hear anything the sharp sound of steel on rock. She couldn’t hear anything.

The man she knew but doesn’t know had split into three—one short, one sharp and one glowing.

Her blood pulsed fast in her veins and she can feel it urging. _Killkillkill._ But nothing of her would move, will _listen_ , could hold back the opposing senses of numbness and pain.

And when her knees finally hit the ground, and the bloodied floor flew up towards her face, she prayed for endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One left!


	7. Chapter 7

Hawke woke starving.

Her eyes cracked open and she was staring at the red canopy of her bed. It was almost startling compared to the gray gray gray of her cell.

She felt… okay. Better than okay. Tired. Maybe a little sore.

Starving.

Hawke looked around, and saw Merrill reading a book at her side. At Hawke’s movement, she looked up.

“Merrill.” She croaked, sounding inhuman.  “It’s very important to me that you go downstairs and tell Orana to bring me every food item in the manor.”

“Hawke!” Her friend cried, “You’re okay!”

“Better than okay.” Hawke replied hoarsely, trying not to cough because it would hurt her sore throat. “I’m alive.” She said it with wonder, and instantly felt foolish. Merrill beamed at her, however, and Hawke smiled.

Merrill then scrambled to her feet, the book falling forgotten at her feet. She headed swiftly to the door, and Hawke sat up in alarm.

“Merrill!” Hawke tried to bark commandingly, but the roughness of her voice lost some of its authority. “I swear to the Maker, if you bring everyone in here right now, I will stick your staff so far up your—“

Her unconvincing threat was interrupted by Merrill opening the door. A massive Ferelden beast bounded across the floor in three steps before he soared across the bed and landing heavily on top of her.

“Mal—“ She grunted in pain. Her beautiful damn son had jarred her side, and she let him lick her face atrociously only for a few moments before gingerly shifting him off her lap. She sat up on the bed, and looked down at her body while absently stroking Mal’s head.

Her wrists were covered in bandages, but she was sure those were mostly healed. Her torso was also bandaged, seemingly because of a side wound she didn’t remember receiving. Her face was remarkably untouched, which was definitely new. She tended to catch a lot of elbows and fists there. She moved her other arm to lift the blanket to check for further injuries, but the movement nearly drove the air from her lungs.

Mal whined as she moved her hand away from rubbing his ears and she carefully prodded her wrapped shoulder. She frowned for a moment, confused. Then she remembered—an arrow streaking through the air, impaling itself in her shoulder. She didn’t remember much of that last fight, other than blood and fog. But she remembered the arrow.

Merrill was watching her with concern. The elf had never been good at acting aloof—that was Varric’s job mostly.

Hawke leaned back against the sheets, her injury check complete for now.

“You didn’t really think Aveline would let everyone crowd around your bed, did you?” Merrill asked, trying to feign her usual cheeriness. “She kicked everyone out ages ago. She let me stay because she said I asked the nicest.” She added, pleased.

Hawke chuckled, picturing the kicking and screaming that must have entailed. Despite her hunger, she was starting to fall asleep again. Mal settled warmly on her uninjured side, and she smiled wanly. Maker’s breath, she was happy to be home.

“Go back to sleep, Hawke.” She heard her friend say soothingly. A part of Hawke felt disturbed at how sudden her exhaustion hit, but the more rational side assuaged those fears, knowing this time, the blackness wouldn’t be from a saturated rag.

* * *

 

When she woke again, she was alone except for Mal.

She lay still for a moment. She was still tired, but it felt more muted. Her shoulder throbbed, and her side felt warm, but she felt better than she had in a long time. Her bed felt luxurious compared to her prison pallet on the cold stone floor. Still, she was stiff and hungry.

Mal growled softly as Hawke used her good arm to throw the covers back. She rolled her eyes at the dog. “Oh, hush. I let you run around after the bee stung you, don’t pretend I didn’t.”

As she slid carefully from her bed and walked across the room, she was pleased to discover that she didn’t feel nearly as weak as she was expecting. Her legs were solid beneath her and she strode across the room with a disgustingly pleased grin.

The grin slowly slid off her face as she became winded at the door. She leaned against the door for a moment, happy at least that no one was in the room with her to watch her struggle.

Mal whined from the bed and she flapped a hand over her head to wave him off.

She could hear quiet chatter through the door. Immediately she picked out Isabela’s laughter and Varric’s story-telling voice—though he’d never admit he had one. Then, a child’s voice? Hawke’s hand paused at the door handle, and then opened it quietly.

She took only one step out into the dark upper balcony before she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Maker’s breath, Fenris.” She hissed at her friend, who had jumped up from the chair he’d been perched on. It was almost worth the weeks of torture to see the startled expression on his face.

Actually, it really wasn’t.

His eyes narrowed accusingly. Then widened in concern. “Hawke, you—“

Hawke hadn’t realized she was tilting until Fenris’ cold metal gauntleted hand steadied her.

She placed a hand on the wall and waited til he withdrew his hand slowly. “I’m just hungry.” She said. And it was true. She hadn’t been hungry the entire time spent in the caves. She’d spent days, maybe weeks, sick to her stomach from the gas. But now she was genuinely, perfectly starving.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, quietly so the others below didn’t hear.

She sighed. “Fine, Fen. I don’t want to be asleep anymore. I want to hear what happened.”

A child’s laughter floated up again. She frowned for a moment. Then pieces slid into place.

“Thom!” She cried, and before Fenris could stop her, she was halfway to the stairs.

She heard Fenris call after her in warning, and heard Mal bark from her room at the same time the room under her silenced. She hurried down the stairs, adrenaline correcting her sloppy footing.

Bodhan must have dragged all the available chairs from around the manor to fill the warm bubble around the fireplace. All of her crew—her friends—were gathered here, in her home. As pleased as she was to see them, her eyes instantly focused on the small boy.

She took the few steps before falling to her knees in front of him. He was cleaned up, wearing regular clothes instead of rags. She would hardly have recognized him if it wasn’t for her messy mop of hair. She fought back tears as she put her hands on Thom’s shoulders.

She’d spent days worried about him before Alrith told her they’d killed him. She knew better than to take him at his word. But that place had a way of sapping her.

The boy smiled shyly at her, and she felt tears slipping down her face. She felt like a bloody idiot. She hadn’t broken down the entire time in captivity and immediately after seeing Thom she was a bubbling mess. She laughed through the tears and hugged Thom to her chest. The boy froze for a moment, clearly unused to affection, then his small arms squeezed her back.

“Maker’s breath, Thom.” She said, forcing the tears to go away. “I thought they got you.”

He pulled back and shook his head. “I did what you said. I hid in a tree close to the cave because I thought they would ‘spect me to run. Then I came here and found the guard lady.”

She smiled, and tousled his hair. “Smart kid.”

He beamed.

She straightened and her vision swam for a moment as blood rushed from her head. She would have toppled backward if Fenris hadn’t appeared behind her and balanced her gently with one hand.

Her vision cleared and she saw silent concern on her friends’ faces. “Head rush.” She said.

“Welcome back, mate.” Isabela said warmly, coming forward to her hug her. And then she was suddenly forced into a chair and being checked over by everyone. She alternated between laughing and groaning under their ministrations. She barely felt her injuries or weakness. She just felt warmth that had nothing to do with the roaring fire.

Anders straightened from his check of her bandages with a huff. “You should be in bed.” He chastised lightly.

She shrugged and winced immediately at how the movement pulled at her recently-impaled shoulder. “Spent enough time sleeping.” She said vaguely. A moment of awkward silence was punctuated only by snapping pops from the fire.

“Hawke, what… what happened?” Sebastian asked, and judging from everyone’s expressions, they had also been dying to ask.

Hawke glanced at Thom, and he shrugged. “I never knew all of it. Just some.”

Hawke sighed. She just wanted to eat and forget all about it. Mostly eat.

She began explaining what she knew, but even her knowledge was limited. As it turned out, Thom had filled them in more than she had thought. She tried to skim over the worst parts and stick with Alrith’s gang’s motives and plan to unleash her in Kirkwall. From the exchanged glances she caught every few seconds, she knew that they already knew more than enough about The Worst Parts. She frowned.

Aveline crossed her arms when Hawke finished. “Idiots.” She said gruffly. “They just tried that poison shite barely two months ago. Did they really think that we wouldn’t connect it to an anti-Qunari movement?”

Feeling oddly vulnerable, Hawke admitted, “I think most of Alrith’s motivation was his sister’s death.”

She caught Fenris’ distasteful glance at the sword strapped to his back. Fenris was a lot kinder than he gave himself credit for, and Hawke knew that Mewyn’s sword would probably be dropped off a cliff at the first opportunity. Maybe if she was lucky, Fenris would let her throw it.

“Your turn.” She said, shifting her injured arm on the arm rest and looking each of them in the eyes.

Varric cleared his throat. Story-telling voice. “My part began when I thought I was being arrested.”

Aveline sighed.

“Not that I would _ever_ engage in illegal activities, Captain.” Varric drawled, nodding respectfully at Aveline. “But three guards bursting into my room at the Hanged Man? What’s a poor dwarf to think?”

Aveline narrowed her eyes. “That still doesn’t explain why you threw _sand_ in their _eyes,_ Tethras.”

“Or where you even got the sand.” Isabela piped up helpfully.

“I’m closer to the ground than the rest of you, Rivaini. Much easier to surreptitiously scoop up piles of sand.” Varric supplied wisely.

“Unbelievable.” Aveline replied.

Hawke couldn’t help smiling.

“Since Varric seems set on making jokes,” Aveline continued, frosting their friend with a withering glare, “yes, I sent out guards to fetch everyone after Thom told me where he had escaped from.”

“You didn’t think it was a trap?” Hawke asked, surprised.

There was another uncomfortable silence as Hawke heard what they didn’t want to admit: that they would have risked a trap if it meant finding her. Hawke knew she would have down the same if the positions had been reversed.

“Who would doubt the wee face?” Sebastian inserted, suavely changing the mood as the room focused on Thom’s now blushing face.

“I made sure to remember the way!” Thom added, clearly pleased as his foresight. “And then they made me wait outside with her.” The boy pointed at Merrill briefly. “And then I found them the cart!”

“Cart?”

“I found it when I was hiding after you boosted me through the ceiling. I think they used it to get food and stuff from the city.” Thom said.

“If you call what we ate food, I suppose.” She said dryly, earning a laugh from the boy.

“Varric and Isabela and I went further in the cave to find you.” Fenris explained from where he leaned against the arm of her chair. “Aveline and the rest tracked down stragglers in the cave. By the time we found you…” He trailed off for a moment, and though Hawke didn’t remember all of what had transpired, she knew enough.

“By the time we found you,” Varric picked up the thought, “didn’t seem like you needed us much.”

“You telling me that I finally got you to carry me somewhere, Varric, and I wasn’t even conscious for it?”

Varric played along. “Sorry, Hawke. Only gal I carry around bride-style is Bianca.” He cast a fond glance at the crossbow over his shoulder.

Sebastian chuckled. “Not to worry, Hawke. Fenris was the perfect gentleman.”

“Only dropped you once.” Isabela added.

“I did _not._ ” Fenris argued, exasperated.

“’course you didn’t.” The pirate winked, and Fenris’ answering eye roll was loud enough to be heard across the room.

Hawke couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. She was _home._ And despite all the emotional and physical trauma of the last few weeks, she had never felt better.

 

Eventually, she had gotten a more cohesive story. Like Thom had said, he had hid from Alrith’s scouts. There were plenty of small hidey holes in the rocky surrounding area for the small orphan to hide in. The guards had spent a frustrated few hours searching for Thom, but eventually enough time passed for them to assume Thom was either dead or beyond their reach. Alrith’s time table needed to accelerate, leading eventually to the final test that had been the end of him and all his crew. Her friends had followed Thom’s lead to the cave system in the Wounded Coast as fast as they could gather their gear together. Aveline had Merrill stay behind to protect Thom from anyone that managed to escape the cave. As it turned out, only three had managed to escape Hawke’s slaughter, and those had been quickly dispatched by Sebastian and Aveline. Fenris, Varric and Isabela followed the rough directions Thom had given with regards to the prison cells in the back of the system. They had run into Hawke before they had expected to. But Hawke remembered enough about that and chose not to dwell on that part of their story.

The second team had moved systematically through the rest of the system, finding no one else alive, but to Hawke’s great pleasure, managing to find her armor and sword.  She hadn’t expected to see it again.

By the time both teams had emerged from the caves, Thom and Merrill had brought the cart out of its hiding spot a few yards away. They loaded up Hawke’s unconscious body on the cart and Anders had spent most of the ride back to Kirkwall doing what he could for her exterior wounds, but claiming that the poison just had to work its way out of her system.

They left the corpses to rot in the caves.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later.

 

“Hawke!”

She glanced up from the market cart she’d been perusing, frowning. It was her first day back out in Kirkwall. Well, it was the first day she had been allowed back in Kirkwall in her armor and sword. As glad she was to be out and about fully armed, she didn’t feel like helping the masses today.

Her frown was quickly transformed into a grin. “Thom!” She cried, and headed over to the small boy, Fenris, Isabela and Sebastian on her heels.

The boy ran to her from across the market, dodging carts and merchants with all the agility endowed to a prior street urchin. Hawke carefully hugged Thom when he reached her, trying not to stab him with any armored pokey-bits.

Thom had stayed in the manor for the first few days of Hawke’s recovery. Hawke was happy to keep the kid around forever, but Anders managed to talk her into setting the kid up in a “more appropriate” home. Her tendency to eat food off the ground in the market and spending half her nights killing gangs on the street _apparently_ didn’t make her a very good influence.

She’d missed him, though. This was the first time she’d seen the boy since Anders had offered to bring Thom to his new family.

“I like this much more, Thom.” She told him.

He pulled back, eyes confused.

She grinned. “Hugging is infinitely better than you falling on me in a dark alley.”

The boy smiled back shyly, then asked very seriously, "How are you doing, Hawke?"

Hawke tried to keep her smile plastered on thick, but she knew that with the dark circles under her eyes and the way she still favored her left side was obvious even at a glance. Though she was back at home finally, she had a hard time sleeping and was plagued by nightmares of her killing her loved ones in saar-qamak-induced rages. She jumped at the quietest sounds or the briefest of movements. She hadn't talked about her fears or experiences much with her friends, but she knew what they would say. That she'd been through an ordeal not many could have, and that she was safe again. And that was true on some accounts. But now she felt fragile, like someone had finally knocked her ego down a few pegs and now she had to face a new reality where she wasn't untouchable when she took off her armor at the end of the day. Now she knew there was always going to be someone out there with a vendetta, someone out there with a knife to her throat.

But she also felt stronger. She'd survived. And she was home.

"I'm just happy we're both okay, Thom." She replied finally, and the smile on her face wasn't as forced.

Thom nodded seriously, then looked over his shoulder as someone called his name.

“Your new mum?” She asked, studying the matronly woman that was frantically weaving her way through the crowd.

Thom nodded. “She’s nice. I like her. She started teaching me to read! She said I can write you and Mal soon.” He added, clearly pleased at the idea of sending the giant mutt a letter. His expression darkened, “Serah Gillian said most people my age already know how to read.”

“It’s alright, Thom.” Hawke assured cheerily. “Fenris here is still learning to read, too.”

She looked over her shoulder at her friend; he looked uncomfortable around children but glanced at Hawke. She shrugged, and he crouched down next to Thom, “Perhaps I can lend you some books that helped me in the beginning.” He offered awkwardly.

Thom nodded vigorously, and seemed relieved that he was not _that_ far behind the learning curve. “I gotta go.” He said quickly, as his caretaker finally spotted him. He hugged her one last time, before bouncing off. Hawke watched him until he reached Serah Gillian, who good-naturedly scolded him before taking his small hand in her own.

Hawke straightened from her crouch, and rubbed at her nearly healed shoulder absentmindedly for a moment.

“Come on, Hawke. Varric is waiting at the Hanged Man.” Isabela reminded her. “It’s time we got you proper pissed.”

Hawke laughed, and they turned as one towards their favorite drinking hole. “I’m glad we ran into Thom. Best luck I’ve had in days.”

Sebastian chuckled. “You’ve definitely had your string of bad luck.”

She smiled brightly. “Looks like those days are finally—“

She took another step forward.

And felt her boot sink down into something wet, soft and stinky.

“Maker’s flaming left—“

“ _Hawke_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Man, this felt like such a goddamn journey and a long ass time spent writing. It's funny to have spent several months writing this fic and then to have it all uploaded in a week.
> 
> Hawke is one of my favorite characters in any media form, and Varric and Isabela are ridiculously fun to write. (Sorry for making you such a shit-starter, Bela. ily.) I hope I'm not done with the DA 'verse, and I hope that you guys enjoyed the fic as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I stole the title from my sister's fic (awk). She had a line "I smell her in the smoke sometimes," and it clicked with me. I went through a few working titles. The worst being "To Kill a Hawke" and the best being "Roll With the Punches," but thanks to Hannah for letting me rip her off. That's what family is for right? I guess they're also pretty great at helping you escape from cave lairs and crazy anti-Qunari fanatics.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please drop me a line or a comment <33


End file.
